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Global History since 1910, 1.02 (V) Schizophrenic Germany

1.02 (V) Schizophrenic Germany

Hi, welcome back. Make yourself comfortable. Let's take a few minutes to understand one particular country on the eve of World War I: Imperial Germany. I call it Schizophrenic Germany because it seems to have at least two different personalities. Why focus on Germany? If you were going to look at the empires whose insecurities and fears are at the root of what happened in 1914, you wouldn't just look at Germany. You'd be very interested in looking, for example, at Austria-Hungary. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, ruled by the Habsburg Dynasty. You'd be very interested in looking at the Russian Empire; they play a key role too. So, why Germany? It's because, I think more than any other single country, Germany controlled the strategic initiative in this crisis. What do I mean by that term? Strategic. Initiative. What I mean: the country that has a strategic initiative, or even the company or the individual that has a strategic initiative in an engagement, whether it's a football game or a war, is the country or the side that's really able to set the time, place, and manner of engagement. They control the setting in which this happens. And I think when you look closely at the crisis in 1914, the German Empire, more than any other single country, controlled the time, place, and manner of the decision to risk general war that year. These other empires certainly have a really important role and, if you want, give them a large share of the blame. But the German Empire's role, I think, is unique as we'll see when we get into that in more detail. When you look at the German Empire on a map, it often just says Germany; that's misleading. When you dig into, what is the German Empire, it's actually a deeply split government. Here's a map of the German Empire in these years. What you see is a really big kingdom. That's in blue. That kingdom in blue, that's the Kingdom of Prussia, but you see a lot of other countries inside the German Empire. For instance, down here at the bottom, you see the Kingdom of Bavaria; or right here, that's the Kingdom of Württemberg. Here's the Grand Duchy of Baden. Here's the kingdom of Saxony with its capital in Dresden, and so on. In other words, Germany actually is the German Empire, and the German Empire consists of a number of different states ruled by kings, princes, and dukes of their own. These different states have their own governments. They're responsible for providing many of their own social services, and they also create and command their own smaller armies, which are harmonized, standard uniforms, equipment, and so on, in the larger imperial army. So, on the top you have this guy the Kaiser, a German word derived from the Latin Caesar. The Kaiser is the head of the German Empire, but as head of the German Empire all he really controls is the army, the navy, foreign affairs. He doesn't really run many of the ordinary functions of government as the head of the German Empire. The Kaiser is also a king. He's the King of Prussia, so he wears two Hats: King of Prussia and Kaiser of the Empire. As King of Prussia, he's the king of a very large state that has all these services: its own parliament, civil service, everything else. When you wears his hat as Kaiser of the Empire, he answers to a parliament: the Imperial Parliament, the Reichstag. The Reichstag basically doesn't have very many powers, except it does have a lot of control over the budget. Over how much money the emperor gets for the army and the navy in his Imperial role. So, in addition to the Kaiser really wearing two hats as the king of one state of the empire, but who's answerable to some degree to this Imperial Parliament, you've also got politics in Germany that are deeply divided, as in so many of these modern nation-states. In Germany, the Kaiser is the representative of an old nobility. He and his large land-owning, entitled friends are a tiny minority of the German population and feel alienated by a lot of modern culture and some of the modern political parties. And then in turn, the parties are divided up among the lines we've talked about before. The National Tradition, they're a very small faction. The National Conservatives, Liberals, Democratic Socialists, there are some Revolutionary Socialists but they don't take part in politics. Here's the Kaiser in 1914, his name is Wilhelm II. He's not really the guy you want by your side in a crunch. He's an intelligent man, a grandson of Queen Victoria of England, but he always resented his English mother. He was born with a kind of defect because of the circumstances of his birth that withered one of his arms and always made him a little extra anxious to prove his masculinity and athletic or hunting skill. Who's really running the government of the empire? The day-to-day running of the imperial government was entrusted to this man, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg. Bethmann Hollweg though, is not like a prime minister or a chancellor would be today. You'd think of a prime minister as the politician whose party has the most votes in the Imperial Parliament. No. Bethmann-Hollweg, he's just a Prussian career civil servant. He's appointed to his job as the chancellor by the Kaiser. He's not a politician, and he has no political base in the Imperial Parliament. He serves at the whim of his crowned master. In foreign affairs, Germany is beginning to feel a bit encircled. Here they are in the center of Europe. Here's large Russia over here. It was really weakened by the revolutions of 1905, but it's recovering its military power and now has the most numerous army in Europe. And here's France over here, still eager for revenge from its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. The Germans feel hemmed in in their search for colonies. And so here are the Germans, they feel like they've become the most powerful country on the continent of Europe, but nonetheless feel defensive, encircled, and worried that their enemies are going to get stronger than they are. The Germans are encouraged to find their place in the sun by being a dominant power in middle Europe, in middle Europa, in central Europe. They're partly encouraged in this hope by this man, Sir Edward Grey. He's the British Foreign Minister trying to manage the balance of power, trying to diffuse crises, trying to keep the British from having to get involved in some military conflict on the continent. By 1912, the Kaiser and some of the nobles around him increasingly feel like the world is moving in the wrong direction. Their reasons for feelings that are partly domestic and partly international. Let's take a look here at what's happening to them in domestic politics. The Germans have a national election in 1912. In an earlier presentation, we talked about the basic kinds of political parties you'd find in the modern world in this period. Armed with that knowledge, you too can interpret the German election results of 1912. Let's take a look. So, on the very far left, you'd have the Revolutionary Socialists. Well, they're not participating in the election because they believe in the violent overthrow of the government. So, they're not represented here. Next, on the left, you'd have the Democratic Socialists, these are the Marxists who are willing to participate in government. In Germany, that's the Social Democratic Party, right here. So, those are your Democratic Socialists. Then, you have your Liberals. The Liberals really group into those who are more pro-imperial and those who are a little more anti-militaristic. The more leftist Liberals are here. The more right-wing Liberals are here. But the Liberal parties taken together win this many seats. Here's the Catholic Center Party. The Catholic Center Party is not easy to categorize. A lot of their views are really Liberal. They're in favor of religious tolerance, because the Catholics feel like they've been battling against the German State for the last 40 years. But, on the other hand, they do believe in traditional values and they definitely do not like the anti-Catholic Marxists. So, I would classify the centrum, the Catholic Center, as being a little more on the Liberal side of the spectrum, literally kind of in the center. On the more conservative side, what I'd call the National Conservatives, that would really be these two parties right here: the German Conservative Party and the German Imperial Party. But between them, that's only 57 seats. Here's some other national minority parties, including a party that called itself the Anti-Semitic Party, because it was so proud that it was anti-Jewish. The Farmer's Party and some of other motley groups. But if you look at this as a whole, this is a very discouraging election result for the Kaiser. If you break it down, you'll see that what they regard as the far left is 30% of the Parliament. The Liberals make up another 24%, so the majority of the parliament are either Marxists or Liberals. The Catholic Center is another 25%, and the National Conservatives are definitely in the minority. So, you have one Germany, the Germany of the Liberals, the Germany of the universities, the Germany of the businessmen. And the working class, represented by a Marxist political party, is the largest political party in the German Parliament. So, that's one face of Germany. From the point of view of the Kaiser, the 1912 election results are telling him that the trend lines are not going in the right direction for the future of him and his kindred. Now let's talk about the international side of what's happening in 1912. But to do that we have to spend a little time on understanding the Balkans and that's worth the presentation in itself. See you next time.


1.02 (V) Schizophrenic Germany 1.02 (V) Schizophrenie Deutschland 1,02 (V) Schizophrène Allemagne 1,02 (V) Schizofrenico Germania 1.02 (V) 統合失調症 ドイツ 1,02 (V) Esquizofrénica Alemanha 1,02 (V) Шизофреник Германия 1.02(五)精神分裂德国 1.02 (V) 精神分裂症德國

Hi, welcome back. Make yourself comfortable. Let's take a few minutes to understand one particular country on the eve of World War I: Imperial Germany. Nehmen wir uns ein paar Minuten Zeit, um ein bestimmtes Land am Vorabend des Ersten Weltkriegs zu verstehen: das kaiserliche Deutschland. I call it Schizophrenic Germany because it seems to have at least two different personalities. Why focus on Germany? If you were going to look at the empires whose insecurities and fears are at the root of what happened in 1914, you wouldn't just look at Germany. Wenn Sie sich die Imperien ansehen würden, deren Unsicherheiten und Ängste die Wurzel dessen sind, was 1914 geschah, würden Sie nicht nur auf Deutschland schauen. You'd be very interested in looking, for example, at Austria-Hungary. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, ruled by the Habsburg Dynasty. You'd be very interested in looking at the Russian Empire; they play a key role too. So, why Germany? It's because, I think more than any other single country, Germany controlled the strategic initiative in this crisis. Das liegt daran, dass Deutschland, glaube ich, mehr als jedes andere einzelne Land die strategische Initiative in dieser Krise kontrolliert hat. What do I mean by that term? Strategic. Initiative. What I mean: the country that has a strategic initiative, or even the company or the individual that has a strategic initiative in an engagement, whether it's a football game or a war, is the country or the side that's really able to set the time, place, and manner of engagement. Was ich meine: Das Land, das eine strategische Initiative hat, oder sogar das Unternehmen oder die Einzelperson, die eine strategische Initiative in einem Engagement hat, sei es ein Fußballspiel oder ein Krieg, ist das Land oder die Seite, die wirklich in der Lage ist, die Zeit festzulegen , Ort und Art des Engagements. They control the setting in which this happens. And I think when you look closely at the crisis in 1914, the German Empire, more than any other single country, controlled the time, place, and manner of the decision to risk general war that year. These other empires certainly have a really important role and, if you want, give them a large share of the blame. But the German Empire's role, I think, is unique as we'll see when we get into that in more detail. When you look at the German Empire on a map, it often just says Germany; that's misleading. When you dig into, what is the German Empire, it's actually a deeply split government. Wenn Sie sich genauer anschauen, was das Deutsche Reich ist, ist es eigentlich eine zutiefst gespaltene Regierung. Here's a map of the German Empire in these years. What you see is a really big kingdom. That's in blue. That kingdom in blue, that's the Kingdom of Prussia, but you see a lot of other countries inside the German Empire. For instance, down here at the bottom, you see the Kingdom of Bavaria; or right here, that's the Kingdom of Württemberg. Here's the Grand Duchy of Baden. Here's the kingdom of Saxony with its capital in Dresden, and so on. In other words, Germany actually is the German Empire, and the German Empire consists of a number of different states ruled by kings, princes, and dukes of their own. These different states have their own governments. They're responsible for providing many of their own social services, and they also create and command their own smaller armies, which are harmonized, standard uniforms, equipment, and so on, in the larger imperial army. Sie sind für die Bereitstellung vieler ihrer eigenen sozialen Dienste verantwortlich, und sie schaffen und befehligen auch ihre eigenen kleineren Armeen, die harmonisierte Standarduniformen, Ausrüstung und so weiter in der größeren imperialen Armee sind. So, on the top you have this guy the Kaiser, a German word derived from the Latin Caesar. Also, ganz oben haben Sie diesen Kerl, den Kaiser, ein deutsches Wort, das vom lateinischen Caesar abgeleitet ist. The Kaiser is the head of the German Empire, but as head of the German Empire all he really controls is the army, the navy, foreign affairs. He doesn't really run many of the ordinary functions of government as the head of the German Empire. The Kaiser is also a king. He's the King of Prussia, so he wears two Hats: King of Prussia and Kaiser of the Empire. As King of Prussia, he's the king of a very large state that has all these services: its own parliament, civil service, everything else. When you wears his hat as Kaiser of the Empire, he answers to a parliament: the Imperial Parliament, the Reichstag. The Reichstag basically doesn't have very many powers, except it does have a lot of control over the budget. Over how much money the emperor gets for the army and the navy in his Imperial role. So, in addition to the Kaiser really wearing two hats as the king of one state of the empire, but who's answerable to some degree to this Imperial Parliament, you've also got politics in Germany that are deeply divided, as in so many of these modern nation-states. Abgesehen davon, dass der Kaiser als König eines Staates des Reiches wirklich zwei Hüte trägt, aber diesem kaiserlichen Parlament bis zu einem gewissen Grad verantwortlich ist, gibt es in Deutschland auch eine Politik, die tief gespalten ist, wie in so vielen von Deutschland diese modernen Nationalstaaten. In Germany, the Kaiser is the representative of an old nobility. He and his large land-owning, entitled friends are a tiny minority of the German population and feel alienated by a lot of modern culture and some of the modern political parties. Er und seine großen grundbesitzenden, berechtigten Freunde sind eine winzige Minderheit der deutschen Bevölkerung und fühlen sich von viel moderner Kultur und einigen modernen politischen Parteien fremd. And then in turn, the parties are divided up among the lines we've talked about before. The National Tradition, they're a very small faction. The National Conservatives, Liberals, Democratic Socialists, there are some Revolutionary Socialists but they don't take part in politics. Here's the Kaiser in 1914, his name is Wilhelm II. He's not really the guy you want by your side in a crunch. Er ist nicht wirklich der Typ, den du in einem Crunch an deiner Seite haben willst. He's an intelligent man, a grandson of Queen Victoria of England, but he always resented his English mother. Er ist ein intelligenter Mann, ein Enkel von Königin Victoria von England, aber er hat sich immer gegen seine englische Mutter gewehrt. He was born with a kind of defect because of the circumstances of his birth that withered one of his arms and always made him a little extra anxious to prove his masculinity and athletic or hunting skill. Who's really running the government of the empire? The day-to-day running of the imperial government was entrusted to this man, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg. Bethmann Hollweg though, is not like a prime minister or a chancellor would be today. You'd think of a prime minister as the politician whose party has the most votes in the Imperial Parliament. No. Bethmann-Hollweg, he's just a Prussian career civil servant. He's appointed to his job as the chancellor by the Kaiser. Er ist vom Kaiser zu seinem Amt als Kanzler ernannt worden. He's not a politician, and he has no political base in the Imperial Parliament. He serves at the whim of his crowned master. Er dient der Laune seines gekrönten Meisters. In foreign affairs, Germany is beginning to feel a bit encircled. Here they are in the center of Europe. Here's large Russia over here. It was really weakened by the revolutions of 1905, but it's recovering its military power and now has the most numerous army in Europe. And here's France over here, still eager for revenge from its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. The Germans feel hemmed in in their search for colonies. And so here are the Germans, they feel like they've become the most powerful country on the continent of Europe, but nonetheless feel defensive, encircled, and worried that their enemies are going to get stronger than they are. The Germans are encouraged to find their place in the sun by being a dominant power in middle Europe, in middle Europa, in central Europe. They're partly encouraged in this hope by this man, Sir Edward Grey. He's the British Foreign Minister trying to manage the balance of power, trying to diffuse crises, trying to keep the British from having to get involved in some military conflict on the continent. By 1912, the Kaiser and some of the nobles around him increasingly feel like the world is moving in the wrong direction. Their reasons for feelings that are partly domestic and partly international. Let's take a look here at what's happening to them in domestic politics. The Germans have a national election in 1912. In an earlier presentation, we talked about the basic kinds of political parties you'd find in the modern world in this period. Armed with that knowledge, you too can interpret the German election results of 1912. Let's take a look. So, on the very far left, you'd have the Revolutionary Socialists. Well, they're not participating in the election because they believe in the violent overthrow of the government. Nun, sie nehmen nicht an der Wahl teil, weil sie an den gewaltsamen Sturz der Regierung glauben. So, they're not represented here. Next, on the left, you'd have the Democratic Socialists, these are the Marxists who are willing to participate in government. In Germany, that's the Social Democratic Party, right here. So, those are your Democratic Socialists. Then, you have your Liberals. The Liberals really group into those who are more pro-imperial and those who are a little more anti-militaristic. The more leftist Liberals are here. The more right-wing Liberals are here. But the Liberal parties taken together win this many seats. Here's the Catholic Center Party. The Catholic Center Party is not easy to categorize. A lot of their views are really Liberal. They're in favor of religious tolerance, because the Catholics feel like they've been battling against the German State for the last 40 years. But, on the other hand, they do believe in traditional values and they definitely do not like the anti-Catholic Marxists. So, I would classify the centrum, the Catholic Center, as being a little more on the Liberal side of the spectrum, literally kind of in the center. On the more conservative side, what I'd call the National Conservatives, that would really be these two parties right here: the German Conservative Party and the German Imperial Party. But between them, that's only 57 seats. Here's some other national minority parties, including a party that called itself the Anti-Semitic Party, because it was so proud that it was anti-Jewish. The Farmer's Party and some of other motley groups. But if you look at this as a whole, this is a very discouraging election result for the Kaiser. Aber wenn man das insgesamt betrachtet, ist das ein sehr entmutigendes Wahlergebnis für den Kaiser. If you break it down, you'll see that what they regard as the far left is 30% of the Parliament. Wenn Sie es aufschlüsseln, werden Sie sehen, dass das, was sie als die extreme Linke betrachten, 30 % des Parlaments ausmacht. The Liberals make up another 24%, so the majority of the parliament are either Marxists or Liberals. The Catholic Center is another 25%, and the National Conservatives are definitely in the minority. So, you have one Germany, the Germany of the Liberals, the Germany of the universities, the Germany of the businessmen. And the working class, represented by a Marxist political party, is the largest political party in the German Parliament. So, that's one face of Germany. From the point of view of the Kaiser, the 1912 election results are telling him that the trend lines are not going in the right direction for the future of him and his kindred. Aus Sicht des Kaisers sagen ihm die Wahlergebnisse von 1912, dass die Trendlinien für die Zukunft von ihm und seinesgleichen nicht in die richtige Richtung gehen. Now let's talk about the international side of what's happening in 1912. But to do that we have to spend a little time on understanding the Balkans and that's worth the presentation in itself. See you next time.