h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hy Melvyn,

Just to let you know that due to my folly, I´ve had to re-register on this site. I´ve already added you to my friends list and I´ll respond to your latest reply from Thursday on Monday.

It worked just now that I could re-register. My old account is gone.

I´ve taken my lesson from this and will restrain from doing such a thing again in the future.

Have a nice weekend.

Kind regards,

Thomas

Hi Melvyn,

I´ve taken your last reply on the other thread over here to respond to it and keep the thread going here.

“Much I could say about the roots of the French and UK Muslim populations… but it may come in my CH pieces…

But in terms of History I think that the German experience was markedly different because of German ties with Turkey during the Second Reich before 1914 ...”

Frankly, I haven´t read much about that relationship. I even don´t know either whether there is much available in German literature about that. The only thing Germans remember (even if they remember that at all) is the alliance Germany had with the Ottoman Empire during WWI. But as it is often the case with history regarding WWI, the contribution of the German Military as Ally of the Ottoman Empire is very rare mentioned here due to the two fronts war in the Western and the Eastern Front. Such is the way with what went on in the colonies.

Gallipolli is as well more related to the fighting between the British and the Ottomans with less influence given by the Germans.

“Though many of the "Young Turks" seem to have been schooled in France, it was Germany that became an ally of a Turkey that sought to modernise, and made big strides before the First World War Berlin to Baghdad Railway and German Army training plus the kind of units that the USA/UK have left in Iraq and Afghanistan..,”

I don´t know what you mean by your reference of the “Young Turks been schooled in France”. The Berlin to Baghdad Railway might have different reasons and purposes for why it was planned. Strategic reasoning was probably alongside the trade purpose but as far as I know, this wasn´t completed due the outbreak of WWI.

“And crucially c1922 in the Revolution of Kemal Attaturk Turkey was turned into a "modern" secular state on the French model and renounced the Khalifate, the leadership of Islam ... So the leading and most modernised Islamic State gave up, leaving the "throne" free for others, which goes to the heart of these new Khalifate ... No-one "is in charge"... “

I´ve watched some documentary about Attaturk a short time ago. I´ve been from time to time interested in his biography but didn´t seek to find a book, written either in German or English, here in Germany. When you go to the Turkish shops, it´s quite normal that what they have on offer is in their language. But I got some piece of work from wiki to read though.

“But it also means that when the Turkish workers flooded into post-war Germany to help out in the "economic miracle", though there were problems enough (houses burned out with all the residents) the differences between Turk and German were not like those between the French and the North African Muslims in the last 50 or so years ... “

The Turkish workers who came to West-Germany by invitation to work here, were from the very outset considered and “recruited” as what we called them “Gastarbeiter”. There was no plan of integrating them, let alone allowing them to take their families over here. Contracts and resident permissions were limited for a couple of years, they could be renewed and so it went, but neither the German politicians nor the population was thinking about them becoming a permanent resident part of our society. This is where most of the failures started when during the period of the Social-Liberal government (the SPD/FDP coalition) allowed the “Gastarbeiter” to bring their families over to Germany but left them onto themselves to integrate into the German society. It developed to what we had to deal with on integration problems, long neglected and denied by the Conservative Parties (as their slogan always has been that German isn´t an immigration country, but de facto it became one). The Turkish people worked in German Factories and other places to take up jobs the Germans didn´t wanted to take anymore. But outside the factories, they lived among themselves and the bit of knowledge of the German language was sufficient to get through the demands at their work places. Such was the situation of the “first generation”. The “second generation” are those who either were already born in Germany or came here as children in due course of the “Familiennachzug” (following of wife and children to the husband already working in Germany), but without knowing a single word in German. I can tell you from my own time in school, when I was at an age of around 12, we got two boys in our class “fresh” from Turkey. The other classmates, who were with me in my class and spoke German, were those who helped their fresh arrived fellowmen to get on with what was going on in school. But as you might know yourself, such help can do little to follow the curriculum and they could just explain them the basics. It was clear that they had to start from new but more to the point, had to learn German first to get on with school at all. At that time in 1980/1981 there were no special classes for newcomers to learn German in special courses. Looking back on that, I find it very hard to bring children into a foreign country without a basic knowledge of the language spoken there and let them attend school without knowledge of the language. Most of the time they sat in class not knowing what the people were talking about. As the pair of them couldn´t make it to be transferred to the next class, I don´t know how they managed to get on with school at all. I suppose that somehow they learned German and with luck, they made their way, or if all failed were sent back to Turkey by their parents.

We were already a class of mixed nationalities when I went to school. There were people from what was then still Yugoslavia and Turkey. I got on with my class mates from Turkey somehow good or bad, depending on the individual, but that was due to the fact that those I knew could speak German. The other two newcomers were a thing I´ve never witnessed before and never after. The government had to act on such situations and established curriculums where newcomers first were to teach in German at all, because otherwise to put them in regular classes was to no avail, they learned nothing without at least getting the basics of the German language to understand what was going on, but even with the basic knowledge of our language, it´s been still a hard road for them to keep up anyway.

There was always a coming and going of Turkish families to and from Germany. Some parents sent their children, after they´ve reached a particular age, back to Turkey to attend school there. This continued from the first down to the third generation, depending on how deep those families were already settled in Germany. Such was as well the way with marrying a partner still living in Turkey and bring him/her over to Germany. As usual the partner following from Turkey came here without knowledge of German. They depended on the contacts and the guide of the here already integrated husband or wife. But this wasn´t much of a problem as long as the newcomer didn´t had to seek a job, the environment that developed within the Turkish community didn´t make it necessary to learn German at all. It is like a small “colony” of people who live abroad but come from the same country of origin that they can help out each other and one another without the necessity to get in touch with the host countries population. When there was a thing to deal with the German authorities, there was a translator available in case the other partner who spoke German couldn´t attend the appointment.

From the first generation, I still have met people who even after decades of living in Germany, had problems with the basics in German language. You might wonder where this comes from. It´s not just due to their lack of learning the language, it is also due to the native Germans in the factories and other places that to make them understand what was to be dealt with, the Germans didn´t spoke with them in a proper way and so that “kind” of German these people learned was the false language the Germans taught them. It was different with the second generation who attended German schools. They naturally were better off in such cases, but due to the habits of speaking rather Turkish than German at home, some of them still spoke better Turkish than German. It´s more of a natural thing because when talking to their parents who didn´t know German it wouldn´t make sense to speak it with them at all, unless their parents had an interest in learning it at all.

The people of the second and third generation are better off than their forefathers and some of them made it to better jobs, but as it is in all societies, there are the winners and the losers. We have now the fourth generation grown up, and the fifth already born.

It took us at least one decade to realise and recognise that the steady denial of the German Conservative Parties regarding our country being an immigration country was wrong. The recognition of the bit those “Gastarbeiter” did to our economy and society came late, but I do hope not too late. I do see similarities of that in other Western European countries too with nearly the same roots of failed integration from the very outset because there was probably no plan for help them to integrate.

Before the Solingen incident happened, I didn´t know anything similar where the houses of Turkish people in Germany were burned down, except by accident as such things happen.

“As for German block tenements I saw quite a bit of them when I took a school party to Berlin c1994, for we were based for the evenings in old East Berlin, with, as happened in this scheme, the pupils staying with German hosts in order to learn language and culture, while we and our guide visited things during the day ...”

The first time I went to Berlin was in October 1986 and it took me twelve years until I visited Berlin again in spring 1999. The last time I´ve been there was in 2007 and frankly, I´ve seen enough of it and have no further interest in that town anymore.

“One thing perhaps I would say now is that, perhaps because of the previous devastation (and perhaps consequences) the large communist blocks did seem to be spaced out with more chance of people feeling that there was a genuine communal area that they could feel was part of their home.”

Well, that is a thing to answer by those who lived there. In public opinion, these places are the ones being considered as the modern social problem districts.

Cheers,
Thomas

Morning Thomas

Thanks for your reply- and thanks for an insight into the German experience. Picking up a few points:

The German interest in Turkey was, as you say, I believe, largely because of the wider Ottoman Empire and I read as a northern competitor to the Anglo-French Suez Canal, that kick-started the emergence of a new Egypt on the way between Western Europe and Asia. Germany was very obviously created by the railway age and the Berlin-Baghdad Railway became the line for the fabulous "Oriental Express" in the age when Russia was building the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Obviously part of the German fascination with the Indian sub-Continent we now associate with its Nazi manifestations.. The fact that the great Hindu Civilization had been Aryan and part of the whole huge linguistic entity known as Aryana: And a special interest in Tibet, which perhaps a victorious Third Reich would have seized before China did it in the 1950s.. But perhaps you have seen some of the pre-1939 German film set in Ancient Hindu settings.

As for the military T.E. Lawrence writes about the German involvement in the Turkish military establishment in Arabia in the First World War

Re the "Young Turks"-- Britain and France fought the Crimean War in the 1850s to stop the expansion of the Russian Empire at Turkish expense, and the obvious way to help Turkey "The Sick Man of Europe" was to bring able young men to be educated in the West, most obviously France, because it too was a Mediterranean country with a long history of "doing business" with the Turks..And when these young men qualified and returned they began a process of change.

The points that you make about the Turks in post-war Germany were a reminder that it was only the Weimar Constitution (I believe) that allowed Jews to be classified as German Citizens, the German Empire having been created in a romantic Nationalist dream of what happened when a whole nation, people of the same race, blood and mind all came together. And the constitution also had a clause that said that it a very small proportion of the population , something like 3%, asked for a referendum on any issue, there would have to be one. I do not know whether the "Jewish interest" ever made use of this right, but the fear of such a relatively well-educated and prosperous "alien" group having access to such power may well have influenced the kind of emotions that Hitler was able to exploit.

And presumably the initial rationale was that the Nazi policy of a "Kolmar" kind of ending, going down fighting to the last man, did mean a legacy of very few German men.. So the films of people collecting up the bricks amongst the rubble of Berlin, ready for re-building, featured a high% of females..

Much of what you write, however, makes me think of London and my teaching career from the late-Sixties.

But presumably part of the current tensions are related to the "German Homecoming" with people from the GDR feeling that they have rights and entitlements that the Cold War robbed from them, and gave to the Turks.

And your observation about the Communist Housing blocks is consistent I believe with what I wrote. Not long after "the Fall" I met someone from the East in our South of France campsite, who had found that now she faced the difference between being employed and being unemployed, which did not exist before.. Obviously those who are unemployed are likely to feel that this is change for the worse.. And in much the same way, both world wars have left some people in Britain feeling even some nostalgia for the way that the war threw them together with people whose qualities and comradeship they would never have known otherwise. But when life makes it possible for such people to "move on" and "achieve great things" this can leave the people they left behind feeling a sense of loss.

Cheers

Cass

PS. I have almost finished the first part of Charlie Hebdo and will post it soon. Watch this space.

Thanks Melvyn,

“... Germany was very obviously created by the railway age and the Berlin-Baghdad Railway became the line for the fabulous "Oriental Express" in the age when Russia was building the Trans-Siberian Railway.”

The railway system in Germany has more to do with her rise as an economical power after the Second Reich was established in 1871, but one has to bear in mind, that even in that German Empire, there was no such national railway as after WWI when the “Reichsbahn” was founded. The railway was either owned by the federal state who could afford it, such as the military was, or it was run private. Same applies for the Postal Service. That was all due to our federalism. I haven´t read that much about the Berlin-Baghdad Railway but from what I´ve noticed by some documentaries where this was mentioned, it got more to do with strategic interests and maybe in foresight with access and transport of oil in the upcoming motorisation starting in the early 20th Century.

“Obviously part of the German fascination with the Indian sub-Continent we now associate with its Nazi manifestations ... The fact that the great Hindu Civilization had been Aryan and part of the whole huge linguistic entity known as Aryana: And a special interest in Tibet, which perhaps a victorious Third Reich would have seized before China did it in the 1950s ... But perhaps you have seen some of the pre-1939 German film set in Ancient Hindu settings.”

I don´t see it much that way that a German fascination with India has much to do with the insane racist ideology of the Nazis. It is a constructed myth, created by those German racists themselves that they assumed the “Aryans” originally came from the Indian sub-Continent.
There´s no proof for that and some modern anthropologists found just one person who matched with the description and depiction of this “Aryan archetype” and that person they found was a young girl who lived among the Nomads in Afghanistan. I rather think that the name “Aryan” itself which probably belonged to an Indian tribe was abused by the German racists to distinguish themselves from others.

As for Tibet, according to what Hitler has agreed with the Japanese, Tibet had belonged to the sphere of influence of Japan. The demarcation line was drawn from Archangel in the North down to the Caspian Sea in the South. But that was, as much of it, just theory. What the Nazis were seeking to get was a way to destabilise then British India by supporting and using Indian independent movements apart from Gandhi.

There´s another thing to that German fascination with India and this is more related to the books and poems written by Hermann Hesse. He travelled himself to India in the 1920s and his famous book about that is “Sidharta”. I´ve read that, such as others written by him, around twenty years ago. Other things might be that some Germans fancy Indian food, music, culture and the myths that surround India. I can´t tell because I´m not one of them. My interest on India ends with Gandhi and the end of the British Empire there, but I´m not too much bothered with Indian food (like others go eating out in Indian or Chinese Restaurants). That´s all a matter of taste and I´ve tasted both of it and I´m more a European regarding that.

No I haven´t seen any pre-1939 film about India made by a German film team and in fact all what is made between 1933 and 1944 I regard with the utmost suspicion because of the in-fluence of Nazi-propaganda.

There is much more to the German fascination with India than that period of Nazi Germany. In fact it´s got more to do with British India and further back with the tales of Marco Polo and other stories that came with the merchant travellers who took to Asia as far as China and Ja-pan. Not less to say about the story of Gandhi but also the diversity of Indian culture. I´m not sure whether those who are that fascinated with India always understand their way of life because it seems to me that their approach towards that is more of an intellectual nature or something they like in particular of that culture. But I can´t speak for them because my interest in India is rather limited and I don´t claim to understand all of their culture, but somehow I can respect some parts of it. There is just the problem that some of their way of life contradicts the universally human rights. This is where it starts to get tricky.

“As for the military T.E. Lawrence writes about the German involvement in the Turkish military establishment in Arabia in the First World War.”

Surely there has been a German involvement in the Turkish military establishment in Arabia, respectively the Ottoman Empire, during WWI. I regard this involvement more as having been on the basis of military advice and less of deploring of German troops. The fighting was done by the Ottomans or if you like the Turks. The Germans couldn´t afford to deploy troops away from the Western or Eastern Front in Europe to fight in the Middle East.

“Re the "Young Turks"-- Britain and France fought the Crimean War in the 1850s to stop the expansion of the Russian Empire at Turkish expense, and the obvious way to help Turkey "The Sick Man of Europe" was to bring able young men to be educated in the West, most obviously France, because it too was a Mediterranean country with a long history of "doing business" with the Turks. And when these young men qualified and returned they began a process of change.”

Well, on one hand the British and the French fought the Russians to stop them from annexing the Crimea but on the other hand, during the Balkan Wars the up to then by the Ottomans occupied territories that later became independent countries tell their story that they have fought the Ottomans by themselves and drove them out. But who were these “able young men from Turkey” to study in Europe if not the sons of the wealthy families? But I find the part you´ve mentioned interesting.

“The points that you make about the Turks in post-war Germany were a reminder that it was only the Weimar Constitution (I believe) that allowed Jews to be classified as German Citizens, the German Empire having been created in a romantic Nationalist dream of what happened when a whole nation, people of the same race, blood and mind all came together.”

The “emancipation” of the Jews took already place in the Kingdom of Prussia, pre-1871 and continued in the German Empire as well as it did in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It´s got nothing to do in particular with the Weimar Constitution because this constitution granted equal rights to every citizen, no question about his or her religion. To be classified as German Citizen was also a matter of the Weimar Constitution because until 1918, every German Citizen was as well the subject of the federal Kingdom etc. in which he lived. So a Prussian was a citizen of the Reich but also a subject of the Prussian King. Equal the term as British citizens were and are subjects of the British monarchy.

The romantic Nationalist dream of the German Empire has its roots in the 1848 revolution and is not based on what came later, the “same race, blood and mind”. The Christian religion and in particular that of the Protestants along with the raising to power of the Prussian Kingdom got a thing to do with the fact that Germany recognised herself as being a Christian country, but she wasn´t alone in that. The Second Empire was in fact seen as the successor of the old Holy Roman Empire of German Nation just with the difference that it was led by the majority the Prussian State held within that new Empire.

You are taking too much into that from the Nazi period. Prussia, before the militaristic era of Bismarck and Wilhelm II was in compare to the other German states a liberal and tolerant state towards diversity in religion. The Hugenots, driven out of France in the 17th Century found refuge in Prussia for example and given that they were of French origin, Prussia was then open to an influx of people from other countries to settle there. When you go to visit Potsdam, near Berlin, you find different cultural influences on display from times before the Third Reich. There is a Russian colony, there are the brick stone houses in the Dutch quarter, in Berlin at the Gendarmenmarkt, there is the German and opposite the French Cathedral. It is more to the point that in history, Prussia appears as the strong military force in the first place because it was that which brought it to power. But which European country that raised in power couldn´t do without the military. None of the great powers could, not France, not England, not Spain, Portugal, Austria and Russia.

“And the constitution also had a clause that said that it a very small proportion of the popula-tion, something like 3%, asked for a referendum on any issue, there would have to be one. I do not know whether the "Jewish interest" ever made use of this right, but the fear of such a relatively well-educated and prosperous "alien" group having access to such power may well have influenced the kind of emotions that Hitler was able to exploit.”

There was no such a demand from the German Jews to claim a referendum anyway. There wasn´t such a particular “Jewish interest” neither. The Jews at that time in their majority were already assimilated in the German society and they were only seeking to be as equal to other Christian Germans by any means. Equality, not superiority but there is nothing to object if someone tries to be best in his qualifications and profession. Germany got her advantages out of them and their contributions to the common good.

What Hitler was able to exploit was nothing but the fear and the misery of those who found themselves at the bottom of the society with no prospect to themselves and they believed in everything serving as the scapegoat as long as they didn´t have to face their own failures. The depression and the rejection of the Versailles treaty did the rest to it as well as the feeling of some people being inferior to “Jews”.

“And presumably the initial rationale was that the Nazi policy of a "Kolmar" kind of ending, going down fighting to the last man, did mean a legacy of very few German men.. So the films of people collecting up the bricks amongst the rubble of Berlin, ready for re-building, featured a high% of females ...”

Yes, the film “Kolmar” as the last bulwark of resistance during the Napoleonic wars had to hold up for the last propaganda trick of Josef Goebbels in 1945, as like the English say “that´s the spirit”. No wonder that there were more females in films re-building the bombed towns because the men were either dead or captured in PoW camps.

“Much of what you write, however, makes me think of London and my teaching career from the late-Sixties.”

I´m interested in knowing more about that from your experiences.

“But presumably part of the current tensions are related to the "German Homecoming" with people from the GDR feeling that they have rights and entitlements that the Cold War robbed from them, and gave to the Turks.”

Those people who following PEGIDA in the East German towns like Dresden, even don´t know a Muslim personally themselves. The rate of people of Turkish origin in East Germany is on a very low scale. One had to go to West-Berlin to see them, but maybe some of them have already moved to some districts of former East-Berlin.

It´s not the Turks who “robbed them of chances”, it´s been the greedy people from West-Germany who travelled to East-Germany shortly before and more immediately after re-unification to trick them by foul contracts and in due course of reforming their wracked econ-omy lost their jobs because of West-German companies. Some of them seem to have forgot-ten what went on in 1990/1991.

“And your observation about the Communist Housing blocks is consistent I believe with what I wrote. Not long after "the Fall" I met someone from the East in our South of France campsite, who had found that now she faced the difference between being employed and being unem-ployed, which did not exist before ... Obviously those who are unemployed are likely to feel that this is change for the worse.”

No wonder because full employment was the order of the Socialist system and the regime had to sustain every collective no matter what and keep the people working their employed. That is the thing that brings some of the elder people in East-Germany who lived in the GDR to some nostalgic recollections. But they tend to forget about the STASI et all. You couldn´t trust your own neighbour, let alone some of your own relatives who stood behind the regime no matter what. It´s been worse than under the Nazis, or at least as worse as it was then. The demands of a totalitarian regime, that fears the own people and free mind. No question, there was a lot for them to learn and many did well, others relying on the Socialist system failed.

“And in much the same way, both world wars have left some people in Britain feeling even some nostalgia for the way that the war threw them together with people whose qualities and comradeship they would never have known otherwise. But when life makes it possible for such people to "move on" and "achieve great things" this can leave the people they left behind feeling a sense of loss.”

I know, the spirit of 1940 to 1945 born out of the necessity to stick together to survive. Such a spirit serves the purpose and once the purpose is lost, the “stick together” gets lost as well. Solidarity born out of the necessities in a war effort is hardly sustainable in a peace society if it fails to be transferred.

“PS. I have almost finished the first part of Charlie Hebdo and will post it soon. Watch this space.”

I look forward to it with interest.

Cheers,
Thomas

Hi Thomas

I read that with great interest... No time to reply now.. I must go and collect my car from the garage... Funny start to the day.. I was in bed reading last night when I remembered that I was supposed to do my normal think of parking my car in the garage forecourt, dropping the keys in a letter box and walk home.. It saves me having to get up early because they start work at eight.. As it turned out I was awake from about 6.30 and then decided to just get up soon after seven and take the car... What I had not realized until I got to the car was that we had had a frost of minus 7 degrees, and it was really badly iced up. It took me ages to clear the windows, my normal tricks not working at that temperature, especially as the insides of the windows were frozen too... Perhaps in continental Europe you are better prepared for a "Continental Climate". We only get bursts.. Then walking home, which is not far.. But I suddenly felt that I might have underestimated that too.. Trousers too light, and I could not put my hands in my pockets because I was carrying things, plus I had no gloves...At such times you wonder what other people would say.. Silly man doing such things just over two weeks after surgery!!!.. Anyway I am going to get it back before the cold descends upon us.. Bonus is that we have pale blue sky and sunshine.

Cheers

Melvyn

I hope that you don´t catch a cold Melvyn and also that it will not have any affect on your post-operative progress.

The weather forcast says it´s getting colder the next few days. We´ve a fairly snow plain here. It´s been snowing yesterday and today, with a fair hour of sunshine.

I don´t have a garage box to park my car in it. But I don´t have to use my car every day. I´m going by tram to work and back. Saves me money for the fuel, but also the snow cover on the car prevents frozing.

Time for me to ge home now, I hope you´ve got a decent cuppa to warm yourself up after that experience of today.

Cheers,
Thomas


PS: I´ve started my draft of an entry regarding my experiences from being on internet message boards over the past ten years. You´re mentioned there by your nickname in relation to the former BBC History MBs and this place. Don´t worry, it´s all positive regarding yourself, but I´ve just finished the first part of it, which is an overview of the various places and a short description of the background of each message board.

Hi Thomas
When I said that “... Germany was very obviously created by the railway age”- I was referring to the way that opening of the Liverpool- Manchester Railway opened the railway era in 1830, this was just at the moment when Palmerston was negotiating the creation of Belgium, and within a few years GB began exporting the Industrial Revolution to Belgium in order to help to make it a strong and successful state. There was already of course the Rhine and the Scheldt Estuary, but railways spread directly eastward across the vastness of the North German Plain. It made no sense to have customs barriers at all of those separate German states and the Confederation of the Rhine customs union was a logical initiative, and successful way that it created a dynamic that made the creation of a united Germany inevitable made it the model for the 1950s Common Market that was to lead to the EU.
And, when I referred to “the German fascination with the Indian sub-Continent we now associate with its Nazi manifestations, ” it goes without saying that if you show almost anyone a swastika they will think of Nazi Germany, and not of the fact that it is and ancient Sanskrit symbol that Hitler saw as a child on his way to school. And the idea of Aryana was a natural development on from the linguistic studies of the Brother’s Grimm that led to scholars tracing a whole group of languages that had sprung from one common linguistic area that was known as Aryana… But it was authors way before Hitler who started to speak of the Aryans as a racial, biological group, in the last decades of the 19C both French and German nationalist writers claimed their race to be Aryan.
“As for Tibet” we have evidence of a special Nazi expedition that hoped to find the secrets of the special ancient knowledge and powers that were preserved in Tibetan monasteries. You may have heard of the strange story of Himmler’s personal doctor. He was Finnish and had studied all Tibetan medicine and treatments, and had created quite a high society practice, including royal courts. But Himmler was, in fact, more or less crippled by a stomach condition, and when he had heard about this Doctor with Tibetan knowledge sent for him and asked him to become his full-time physician. Himmler as head of the SS was not someone you said “No” to, but after a while when the Final Solution was getting going the Doctor started asking Himmler to pay him in lives of Jews in the Camps as a personal favour as his personal physician, and in the end he saved thousands, such was Himmler’s obsession with these special Tibetan “lost arts”… The Doctor was prosecuted, or was considered at Nuremberg but it was accepted that he had merely stayed true to his hippocratic oath.
And presumably what you write about the Nazis and Japan was all to do with the Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere ( a bit like the Zollverein) and the German sponsorship of Chandra Bose the Indian Nationalist leader who took a title in the Fuehrer/Duce style.

“There is much more to the German fascination with India than that period of Nazi Germany”- exactly that is why the Nazis saw this interest as really “German”. The Moghul Emperor’s title, which then became Victoria’s was “Kaisar I Hind”. And when were the original travels of Baron van Muncheshousin written.
T.E. Lawrence definitely writes about the German fighting involvement in the Turkish military establishment in Arabia in the First World War… Don’t forget that railways were huge investments and needed to be protected, and you did not necessarily trust other forces to protect your own property as much as you might do.. e.g. the Japanese invasion of Manchuria where they had built a railway for the Chinese, like many “foreign concession”: it led to the creation of the puppet state Manchukuo with the last Chinese Emperor put on the throne .
Re the Crimea and the Balkans… There was no threat of the Russians seizing the Balkans, and Britain had started building a post-Ottoman Balkans in the same spirit as Belgium and the small states of Latin America…Byron and his chronies were just part of British support for the creation of modern Greece around the same time as Belgium, and the next two were Serbia and Bulgaria…Many of these new states were given the security of being new monarchies, as republicanism was unproven, and Queen Victoria’s extended family became a regular source of new kings for new countries.. Her Uncle Leopold, who had masterminded Victoria’s route to the throne, became King of Belgium, and I think that the Duke of Edinburgh is from the Danish royal family via the Greek monarchy.
“But who were these “able young men from Turkey” to study in Europe if not the sons of the wealthy families? “ In the culture of the time they may well have been selected by examination and given army scholarships. But I do not know.
Re the “Weimar Constitution (I believe) that allowed Jews to be classified as German Citizens” you seem to basically confirm that though e.g. Prussia emancipated the Jews in 1871, this might not necessary gave them citizenship all over Germany, otherwise why make a law for Prussia. It sounds like the same situation as Federal USA where, eg, the age of consent differs and someone may find themselves being condemned for “Statutory Rape” in one state for acts that would be legal in another.
Well re-- “ German Empire having been created in a romantic Nationalist dream of what happened when a whole nation, people of the same race, blood and mind all came together”—it grew variously but historians tend to see the French Revolution which swept away old Europe and spread “tricolour” republics in Italy and Germany left some people thinking of the logic of National unity reflecting the linguistic common ground.. And it was Lord Byron who was apparently “big” in Europe who had this romantic idea of Nationalism. He used it in the Greek cause in the 1820s and remained a great hero of the Italian Nationalist Mazini.
“Prussia, before the militaristic era of Bismarck and Wilhelm II was in compare to the other German states a liberal and tolerant state towards diversity in religion.” Yes the Dutch German historian Carsten Niebuhr was studying in England during the French Revolutionary Wars, learning all about the English parliamentary system.. And when Prussia was humiliated by French arms, Niebuhr went to Prussia and started radically remodelling the way that it was run , with the result that Prussian Armies shared the victory at Waterloo with the British…The big change came when Napoleon III, inspired by GB of the Great Exhibition started building a new French Empire which started a whole new culture in Europe and elsewhere.

Enough for now..

Melvyn

Morning Thomas..

This is really frustrating.. I have just tried to load part one of my Charlie Hebdo stuff.. And have been blocked by a "Security Check" on h2g2.

“THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD”
AND OTHER THOUGHTS ABOUT ‘CHARLIE HEBDO’
* * *
A. WHAT SHAPED THE ATTACK ON ‘CHARLIE HEBDO’?
In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo killings many people seized upon Oliver Cromwell's famous remark that "The pen is mightier than the sword", largely ignoring the fact that Oliver Cromwell was reviled for centuries as a dangerous “king killer” before he underwent an almost total re-evaluation.
A WORLD OF PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY
Cromwell’s reputation was restored around 1895, just when the European nation states began to realise their full military potential as great empires and swept the world into an era of world wars. Nor is it coincidental that this is just the kind of “state establishment” that is going through a major crisis of credibility both in its European home base and around a world that has re-emerged from a period, when the leaders of such “great powers” and “superpowers” felt destined to rule the world in the name of progress and improvement, ideas that have not really ‘made it’ into the Third Millennium.
In 1895, however, the year when it was decided that Cromwell had been a hero in the struggle for parliamentary democracy and worthy of a statue placed before the Houses of Parliament, the man most likely to be a future Prime Minister, Joseph Chamberlain, was working towards a Teutonic Alliance of Great Britain, Germany and the USA, which would make a power block strong enough to govern world affairs: and the “centre-stage” politicians, who led the “Je Suis Charlie” march on the Sunday following the killings, only missed by default bringing together the heads of the full “Teutonic Alliance”. On the day it was up to David Cameron and Chancellor Merkel to represent “Teutonic” power, while President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron stood ‘shoulder to shoulder ‘for the world’s media at the first opportunity a week later, though that was perhaps even more importantly a reminder of the ‘special connection’ between the USA and the UK that had proved so crucial after the 9/11 attacks, when Great Britain became Americas major ally when President Bush responded by launching the War on Terror starting with Iraq, in spite of President Chirac of France’s veto on the last motion on the Iraq WMD issue that the USA/UK tried to get through the UN.
But under President Sarkozy France abandoned that its previous attitude towards ‘the Anglo-Saxon’ way including the war on Islamic terrorism, not only acting in concert with the “Anglo-Saxon” powers for example in support of the Arab Spring, but also as the former colonial power acting in support of the struggle against Islamic Fundamentalism in some of France’s former colonies.
But in fact, since the Fall of Communism and the end of the Cold War, perhaps even more of domestic and international politics has come down to the powerful countries and organizations merely trying to react to “events dear boy, events, much to the dismay of to the Marxist British/European Historian Eric Hobsbawm who had lived through most of “The Age of Catastrophe 1914-145”, before being greatly encouraged by a post war “The Golden Age”, that then crumbled into an era of “The Landslide”.
By 1994 Dr. Hobsbawm was an old man fighting back dark thoughts with no expectation of any better times while he lived, though he conceded that, just perhaps, things might look more hopeful after a quarter or a half of a century. But as for the present:
“The Short Twentieth Century ended in problems, for which nobody had, or even claimed to have, solutions. As the citizens of the ‘fin-de-siecle’ tapped their way through the global fog that surrounded them, into the third millennium, all they knew for certain was that an era of history had ended. They knew very little else…Thus, for the first time in two centuries, the world of the 1990s entirely lacked any international system or structure.” (page 558-9)
“We do not know where we are going. We only know that history has brought us to this point and- if the readers share the argument of this book- why. However, one thing is plain. If humanity is to have a recognizable future, it cannot be by prolonging the past or the present. If we try to build the third millennium on that basis, we shall fail. And the price of failure, that is to say, the alternative to a changed society, is darkness.” (page 585)

Thanks for your reply Melvyn,

I prefer to avoid going more into detail regarding the Nazi past, for good reasons, so I picked those parts of your post on which I like to respond.

“It made no sense to have customs barriers at all of those separate German states and the Confederation of the Rhine customs union was a logical initiative, and successful way that it created a dynamic that made the creation of a united Germany inevitable made it the model for the 1950s Common Market that was to lead to the EU.”

There was just one time when this “Confederation of the Rhine” existed and this was during the few years of Napoleonic rule, after his final defeat in 1815, we had the German Confederation with the borders of the Vienna Congress and thus Austria within the boundaries. What followed after the Austro-Prussian War in 1866 was the “Norddeutsche Bund” (Northern German Union) under the domination of Prussia. The Southern German States – without Austria – united themselves within a “Customs Union” (Zollunion). The aim of Napoleon by creating this “Confederation of the Rhine” was to abolish the old Holy Roman Empire of German Nation in 1806 and thus to weaken any attempt of German resistance towards his geopolitical policies. Sorry but I can´t see this construct as a forbearer of the 1950s Common Market that led to the EU.

“… it goes without saying that if you show almost anyone a swastika they will think of Nazi Germany, and not of the fact that it is and ancient Sanskrit symbol that Hitler saw as a child on his way to school.”

Right, because of him, it is the way as you said. I´m aware of that but to draw any affection by that towards a German fascination sounds to me a bit far-fetched. It would be a matter of proof to find out how common a display of the Swastika was in Austria in the days of Hitler´s youth. Fact is that when he choose that symbol for his political movement, he knew it already by not from walking along some buildings on his way to school, it´s been on display on a paper pub-lished by some sort of what they called themselves “Alldeutsche” movement. The most known figure related to that movement in Austria is von Schönerer, along with Lanz von Liebenfels. The Thule Organisation had used it also. The symbol itself stands in contrast to other religious symbols and I say that this is as well an aspect for why they took it, to distinguish themselves from Christianity and Judaism, but as the swastika is a “normal” symbols in Buddhism referring to the Sun (a Sun wheel) it looks even more of an abuse for a certain purpose.

“And the idea of Aryana was a natural development on from the linguistic studies of the Brother’s Grimm that led to scholars tracing a whole group of languages that had sprung from one common linguistic area that was known as Aryana… But it was authors way before Hitler who started to speak of the Aryans as a racial, biological group, in the last decades of the 19C both French and German nationalist writers claimed their race to be Aryan.”

The Grimm Brothers collected fairy tales and frankly I´ve never heard about what you said. It is rather possible that this construct has some relation to the Darwinian scholarship and some of his ideas were misinterpreted as being taken for the basis of 19th and 20th century racism.

“And presumably what you write about the Nazis and Japan was all to do with the Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere ( a bit like the Zollverein) and the German sponsorship of Chandra Bose the Indian Nationalist leader who took a title in the Fuehrer/Duce style.”

It was intended to be far more than just a bit like the Zollverein. It was to part the world in two between the Nazis and the Japanese where the first controlled and ruled the Western part and Japan the Eastern. Chandra Bose was nothing more than a Quisling without a country.

“There is much more to the German fascination with India than that period of Nazi Germany”- exactly that is why the Nazis saw this interest as really “German”.

You should be aware that there was nearly nothing left behind by the Nazis when it came to use anything and everything that is even as far German as possible to be used by them for their propaganda.

Another example to what I said can be found in the example regarding banning the poem and song “The Lorelei”, written by Heinrich Heine. Because this poem and song was that popular among the Germans, the Nazis couldn´t ban it and in a false attempt to fool anybody, they just declared that poem as to be of an “Unknown Poet”. It didn´t matter that although Heine was born Jewish and later converted to Roman Catholicism, the Nazi ideology was that strict.

“T.E. Lawrence definitely writes about the German fighting involvement in the Turkish military establishment in Arabia in the First World War…”

Curious enough that there is so little record about that in German history books. As I said, the main issue is always the Western Front and close to that the Eastern Front up to 1917.

“Re the “Weimar Constitution (I believe) that allowed Jews to be classified as German Citizens” you seem to basically confirm that though e.g. Prussia emancipated the Jews in 1871, this might not necessary gave them citizenship all over Germany, otherwise why make a law for Prussia.”

There was a difference between the emancipation of the Jews according to the constitution (the first for the whole of modern Germany was from 1871, called “Reichsverfassung”) and thus giving them citizenship and their way up in the administration and military. I see that you still can´t understand the principle of federalism that ruled here in Germany for over thousand years.

Well re-- “ German Empire having been created in a romantic Nationalist dream of what hap-pened when a whole nation, people of the same race, blood and mind all came together”—it grew variously but historians tend to see the French Revolution which swept away old Europe and spread “tricolour” republics in Italy and Germany left some people thinking of the logic of National unity reflecting the linguistic common ground.. “

The linguistic common ground in Germany was long before the French Revolution and in fact it was Martin Luther with his translation of the Bible into German who set up a common ground for the German language who differed as well in writing by the influence of local or regional dialects.

I don´t share the opinion of those historians you´re referring to because from the very outset of the aims and the ideals of the French Revolution, Napoleon turned the clock back and restored monarchy in France by even topping it with the title “Emperor” he gave himself. After his final defeat, the monarchies in Europe were even more consolidated than before and the later revolutionary years of 1848/1849 which inspired other European Nations too, was to fail because of that consolidation of the monarchies backed by the military, not just in Prussia but also in Austria. To me, 1848 was the birth year of Pan-Europeanism and it´s manifestation at the Hambacher Fest in 1848.

Cheers,
Thomas

Hi Thomas

Just a couple of quickies

Your list of political constructs re the emergence of German unity merely reflects to my mind the adaptation to the reality created by the railways. The world of "it's the economy stupid" was already emerging.. a reality (or even Realpolitik) which one suspects Chancellor Merkel is going to remind the new Greek government about.. Greek Myths and Gods have little appeal... but the Wagnerian Era shows the way that nineteenth century Germans could be attracted back to Aryan myths, like those that were being explored.. I recently mentioned the Danish/Prussian Historian & civil servant Niehbuhr.. His father was a noted voyager and expert on the Middle East and middle Eastern cultures and Civilizations... Was Schliemman German? And you have mentioned Herman Hesse...

And you did not answer me about Baron van Munchhausen?

As for the Grimm Brothers, of course they collected folk tales, but not for publishing in one of the great international success stories of literature.. They were pioneer historians who were on course to developing the forensic study of language as a tool of scientific historical analysis...There are now mathematical formulae that can tell at what rate the words used in a language change, which recognises that some words last longer than others.. This means that text alone can be used to date various documents in relation to each other, and the Grimm brothers work was vital in this.. By visiting various parts of Germany they could detect words and sayings that were still common from earlier times, some that reflected the unity of the first German Empire of post-Charlemagne, and some which went right back to "Aryana"... As I say the works of Wagner, and their success, reflected a German "hunger" for a sense of having a true homeland with roots as enduring as those of India and China.

Cheers

Melvyn

Hi Thomas

Just Googled this.. http://www.india.diplo.de/Vertretung/indien/en/13__Culture/Bilaterals/Indology.html

Just one section of the site

Cheers

Melvyn

Quite frankly, Melvyn, I have no idea what you´re on about by all this.

“… a reality (or even Realpolitik) which one suspects Chancellor Merkel is going to remind the new Greek government about.. Greek Myths and Gods have little appeal... but the Wagnerian Era shows the way that nineteenth century Germans could be attracted back to Aryan myths, like those that were being explored...”

I don´t think that the Myths and Gods of the ancient Greeks will pay the debt of the modern Greek State that has put herself in the mess she´s in. Personally I find all this Wagnerian reference as inappropriate. You know yourself at best that the financial market works without any myths or anything, it works just on cold hard facts and figures.

When the Greeks are running out of reasons, they take the last resort to things like you said or even worse, play the “Nazi card”. I even don´t understand your affinity with all this Aryan myths and frankly, if you like to provoke me by that I´d rather avoid further conversations on such a level and this kind of topic.

“I recently mentioned the Danish/Prussian Historian & civil servant Niehbuhr.. His father was a noted voyager and expert on the Middle East and middle Eastern cultures and Civilizations... Was Schliemman German? And you have mentioned Herman Hesse...”

I´ve never heard about Niehbuhr and I don´t know what you are trying to tell me by this line.

“And you did not answer me about Baron van Munchhausen?”

Why should I? Münchhausen is for good reasons called the “Lügenbaron” (the baron of lies) and it´s nothing but as well a fairy tale.

“As for the Grimm Brothers, of course they collected folk tales, but not for publishing in one of the great international success stories of literature.. They were pioneer historians who were on course to developing the forensic study of language as a tool of scientific historical analy-sis...There are now mathematical formulae that can tell at what rate the words used in a lan-guage change, which recognises that some words last longer than others.. This means that text alone can be used to date various documents in relation to each other, and the Grimm brothers work was vital in this.. By visiting various parts of Germany they could detect words and sayings that were still common from earlier times, some that reflected the unity of the first German Empire of post-Charlemagne, and some which went right back to "Aryana"... As I say the works of Wagner, and their success, reflected a German "hunger" for a sense of having a true homeland with roots as enduring as those of India and China.”

I think that you´re mixing a lot of things together.

Cheers,
Thomas

Thanks for the link Melvyn,

I´ve read what is written there and I admit that this part is rather new to me but as you know, I´m not that well beread in poetry as you are and I think that Goethe is often overrated. I just like to point out to how many people were studying this part of philology at the time when these people lived.

I do not believe in everything philosophers said and the only exception I´ve always made are some selected thinkers from the ancient times, like Marc Aurel and Lao-tse. The first was more a realist, the second was a true wise man.

I take it that you didn´t miss it to read the line on the end of that article. What poets make of things the string together doesn´t necessarilly have to true and it is questionable whether it is to demand any proof from them for their theories. They were and are poets after all. Goethe was in his life time a bit more than just that.

Cheers,
Thomas

Hi Thomas

As I recall it the India theme came because I suggested that the Berlin to Bahgdad Railway project was probably a German attempt to mirror the Suez Canal, and that, while Britain, France, the Dutch and Portugal had been there for centuries, for that very reason Germany had every reason to go and do likewise. Hitler and many of his generation would have been brought up with the whole vision of how Europe could benefit from the fabulous Orient, but because of his various circumstances (and those of the region where he was growing up) he was perhaps more inclined than most Germans, especially perhaps those brought up in the Lutheran Protestant tradition, which (as I think you have inferred) sprang naturally from the previous success (and probable current problems) of the great Hanseatic League, that surely must have acted as something like an external spine helping the Medieval German Empire to work...But generally even German historians like Von Ranke seem to have been obsessed with the Roman Empire and the idea that everything came from the Mediterranean... More recent archaeological work in Denmark and all the Viking territories has suggested that the Baltic Sea and the Eastern coasts of the North Sea enjoyed something of the same dynamics. ( Fabricated and falsified Nazi archaeology notwithstanding)

Cheers

Melvyn

From Wikipedia "Yellow Peril"...An interesting follow up from my last post-- China was ripe for a Scramble For Land.. Britain, France, the Netherlands and Portugal were still in the concessions business and Germany could compete:-----

Quote:

Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany coined the phrase "Yellow Peril" (German: gelbe Gefahr) in September 1895.[7] The Kaiser, under the influence of the anti-Asian diplomat Max von Brandt had come to seen China as a rightful area for Germany to colonize and Japan, which had just defeated China in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), and had made major gains at the expense of China as a serious rival for dividing up the spoils of China.[8] In the Triple Intervention of April 1895, Germany together with France and Russia had presented a diplomatic note to Japan forcing the Japanese to give up most of their gains in China.[8] To justify the intervention, Wilhelm was from April 1895 onwards talking obsessively of the dangers posed the "yellow race" to the peoples of Europe.[8]

In coining the phrase Yellow Peril, Wilhelm had formalized a term for racist fears about Asians that had common in the West since the mid-19th century, especially from 1870 or onwards.[5] The Kaiser had an illustration of this title — depicting the Archangel Michael as an allegorical Germany leading the European powers against an "Asiatic threat" represented by a golden Buddha — hung in all ships of the Hamburg America Line.[5] It was ostensibly designed by the Kaiser himself.[9] The British historian John Röhl described Wilhelm's sketch which inspired the Yellow Peril painting as portraying European nations as "...prehistoric warrior-goddesses being led by the Archangel Michael against the "yellow peril" (represented by a Buddha) from the East".[10][11] The painting was inspired by a dream that Wilhelm had, which Wilhelm took to be a prophecy of the coming, apocalyptic great "race war" between Europe and Asia which would decide the future of the 20th century.[10] Wilhelm was a fanatical white supremacist who loathed Asian peoples, believed that it only a time before a "race war" began, and being an extremely egoistical man saw himself as the natural leader of the "white race" in the coming war against the "yellow peril".[12] After his dream, Wilhelm drew a sketch and then had his count painter Hermann Knackfuss turned it into the Yellow Peril painting.[5] Wilhelm was so impressed that he sent copies of it out as his Christmas presents in 1895.[5] The former Chancellor Bismarck received the painting as a present from the Kaiser, and through he did not quite understand what the painting was supposed to be about, hung up in a prominent place at his estate.[5] The painting was very popular in its day, and was reprinted in the New York Times in 1898 under the title The Yellow Peril.[5]

Hi Thomas

You may have noticed that I managed to post the first bit of my Charlie Hebdo on this thread.. And then thought that it had been accepted because it was no so big... So I have now posted the whole of the section A in four parts.

Cheers

Melvyn Cass

Hi Melvyn,

I´ve read your recent posts, as well as I read your extract from your latest essay.

“As I recall it the India theme came because I suggested that the Berlin to Bahgdad Railway project was probably a German attempt to mirror the Suez Canal, and that, while Britain, France, the Dutch and Portugal had been there for centuries, for that very reason Germany had every reason to go and do likewise.”

Yes, I recall some documentary in which similar as you said was mentioned. It fits to the phrase “a place under the Sun”, uttered by Kaiser Wilhelm II himself. Some further example of the eagerness of Imperial Germany, to match with the other colonial powers and in particular the British Empire.

“From Wikipedia "Yellow Peril"...An interesting follow up from my last post-- China was ripe for a Scramble For Land ... Britain, France, the Netherlands and Portugal were still in the concessions business and Germany could compete: ----“

This part of the story is rather new to me, but I´m not surprised about it because this sort of racism was “common ground” at that time among the people of that time.

“You may have noticed that I managed to post the first bit of my Charlie Hebdo on this thread ... And then thought that it had been accepted because it was no so big... So I have now posted the whole of the section A in four parts.”

I´ve noticed your new entries and I´ll read it. I´m not surprised to find the Anglo-Saxons coming up again. From a first reading of your extract on that, I find it rather distracting because one might wonder what this all has got to do with the subject at hand. I´ll make up my mind after I´ve read all four parts which will take some time because tomorrow I got a day off and I´ll see how I can manage to respond on that on Friday.

Cheers,
Thomas

Morning Thomas

Re Anglo-Saxons perhaps you are not aware that back in the 1990s with the re-emergence of a united Germany and what Mrs. Thatcher and President Mitterand called "The German Problem" there were French politicians who began to say that the EU was becoming too "Anglo-Saxon" because of Mrs T and Mitterand agreed that the solution to the German problem was to tie Germany down by getting it to give up the Deutsmark and adopt the Euro, which would act like the ropes by which the people of Lilliput tied down the giant Gulliver....But this involved the Financial Big Bang which made New York, London and Frankfurt (?) three great Anglo-Saxon financial centres that could dominate the actions and reactions of the world economy...Many in France objected to this and President Chiraq consciously separated France (e.g. over Iraq) But President Sarkozy took up this theme and advocated the Anglo-Saxon path for France, which in international affairs at least President Hollande has continued...And the Anglo-Saxon "contagion" that emerged in the 1860s became obsessed with militarism and conquest etc.. So that the article about the "Yellow Peril" I noted linked it to some violence in 1865 that it blamed on the Chinese immigrants into the USA-- ignoring the fact that it was the extreme violence and bloodshed of the US Civil War that in many ways left a "Wild West", while Napoleon III of France had launched a militaristic adventure of Empire building in Mexico, which made small German principalities bordering France looking to their own defence needs-- and looking to Prussia.

Cheers

Melvyn