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Wikipedia ranks German Chancellors according to the time they held the job.
Bismarck is first with 22 years, 262 days, Helmut Kohl comes second with 16 years, 26 days, Angela Merkel with 14 years, 72 days recently overtook Konrad Adenauer with 14 years, 31 days. Fifth is Adolf Hitler, who lasted 12 years, 90 days.
Last comes Dr Goebbels, with one day. He succeeded Hitler in accordance with the latter's will, before he and his wife killed themselves.
Hitler was the most disastrous German leader since the barbarian invasions and he continues to be disastrous, via the West's obsession with the Holocaust, which is leading to the sort of immigration policies that make another Holocaust all too likely.
Had it not been for Bismarck (or indeed Lenin) there would have been no Hitler. Bismarck united Germany, which was an unmitigated disaster for Germany and for the rest of the world.
Kohl, who created the euro, has very much to answer for, though at least he did not want Greece to be in it. Mitterand told him
Brandt decided that Turkish guest-workers should be allowed to settle, thus changing Germany fundamentally and forever.
Adenauer's most important legacy was a divided Germany with a third of Germany under Communist tyranny, because he turned down the offer from Khrushchev to unite with East Germany under a democratic system.
Really, none of the people I have mentioned left a good legacy, though some were great men, except for Adenauer. He and his successor Ludwig Erhard were perhaps the best.
They did least harm, at any rate.
Had it not been for Bismarck (or indeed Lenin) there would have been no Hitler. Bismarck united Germany, which was an unmitigated disaster for Germany and for the rest of the world.
Kohl, who created the euro, has very much to answer for, though at least he did not want Greece to be in it. Mitterand told him
'You can't exclude the country of Plato and Aristotle.'
Brandt decided that Turkish guest-workers should be allowed to settle, thus changing Germany fundamentally and forever.
Adenauer's most important legacy was a divided Germany with a third of Germany under Communist tyranny, because he turned down the offer from Khrushchev to unite with East Germany under a democratic system.
Really, none of the people I have mentioned left a good legacy, though some were great men, except for Adenauer. He and his successor Ludwig Erhard were perhaps the best.
They did least harm, at any rate.
Had it not been for Bismarck (or indeed Lenin) there would have been no Hitler. Bismarck united Germany, which was an unmitigated disaster for Germany and for the rest of the world.
ReplyDeleteThe unification of all the large European nation states was disastrous. The nationalism of large European nation states always turns into imperialism. France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy - once unified they became imperialist, with catastrophic consequences. Large nation states are essentially artificial. They cannot produce a healthy patriotism and so they turn imperialist.
The most disastrous example of the dangers of large artificial nations is of course the United States which has been an aggressive imperialist power since the mid-19th century.
Patriotism works for small organic nations.
Hitler in his unpublished 'Second Book' said this about the USA and Austria Hungary. I think he had in mind the ideas of Count Coudenhove-Kalergi, who wanted a united, mixed race Europe, when he referred to the 'rootless spirit' of Vienna 'that speaks to us in this way'.
Delete'It is a utopia to want to oppose this consequently racially predominantly Nordic state [the USA} with a European coalition or a pan-Europe consisting of Mongols, Slavs, Germans, Romanians, and so on, in which anything but Germans would dominate, as a factor capable of resistance. Indeed, a very dangerous utopia when one considers that many countless Germans see a rosy future again without having to make the most serious sacrifices for it. The fact that this utopia originates in Austria of all places does not lack a certain comic element. This state and its fate are the clearest example of the enormous strength inherent in such artificially glued together but intrinsically unnatural entities. It is the rootless spirit of the old Reich capital, Vienna—that hybrid city of Orient and Occident—that speaks to us in this way.'
Hitler is a damnably bad writer and is certainly an argument against both imperialism and nationalism, though I think he was more of an imperialist than a nationalist. He was very different from contemporary nationalists, like Antonescu or Metaxas, as Timothy Snyder points out. Professor Snyder calls Hitler a racial anarchist. I think calling Hitler either a nationalist or an imperialist is a bit like using these words to describe Genghis Khan.
I agree about artificial nations but not about empires which do much good: Rome, Britain, Austria. The Ottoman Middle East was peaceful. The Hapsburg Empire was a collection of nations, a political masterpiece and a European Union that worked. The EU is a poor substitute, with human rights instead of the Monarchy, Catholicism and social hierarchy to bind it together.
ReplyDeleteA friend told me German unification was inevitable. AJP Taylor thought Bismarck's great achievement was to prevent the Great Germany being realised, including the German lands of the Austria. This was what Hitler finally achieved in 1938 with disastrous consequences.
I agree about artificial nations but not about empires which do much good: Rome, Britain, Austria. The Ottoman Middle East was peaceful. The Hapsburg Empire was a collection of nations, a political masterpiece and a European Union that worked.
DeleteI'm an admirer of the Hapsburg and Ottoman Empires. I'm also an admirer of Imperial China. I think the Roman Empire was a mixed blessing. The British Empire was an exercise in cynicism, hypocrisy, greed and folly. Much like its successor, the American Empire. It's the arrogant (and unwarranted) sense of moral superiority that made the British and American Empires so offensive. And of course the incompetence of both.
Imperial Spain has had a bad press in British historical writing over the centuries, driven mostly by anti-Catholic bigotry.
Maybe it's religion. Maybe Catholicism and Islam provide a better basis for empire than Protestantism.
On the whole I think the Soviet empire was a positive thing. It was at least as positive as the Roman Empire anyway.