What led to the many downfalls of Germany?

What led to the many downfalls of Germany?

 

Of what time?

 

Now I wonder what your answers might be.

 

All the times since one can speak of Germany as a country = around 800 after Christ

 

Ok. I don't see modern Germany as a fallen country, so I can't comment.

 

Germany didn't become one unified entity until 1871.

 

The terribly punitive Treaty of Versailles. The Great Depression. The Weimar Constitution was terribly weak and allowed the installation of dictatorship waay too easily. The people of Germany were not committed to democracy and democratic principles of freedom and tolerance and equality. The left-wing in Germany was too focused on hating each other than uniting against their common terrible enemy: Fascism.

 

I did not say that Germany is a failed state.
Actually Germany now enjoys good times, relatively speaking.
German history however has many catastophies and unhappy times.
That is my topic in this poll here.

 

You are certainly right here!

 

The German National Anthem praises "Unity and Right and Freedom!" = Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Heinrich_Hoffmann_von_Fallersleben

 

Let me dis-agree.
There has been a united Germany since around the year 800 after Christ.

And what came into being in 1871 was not a united Germany, but a kind of Greater Prussia.
The Austrians regarded themselves as Germans also in those times, but Bismarck excluded them.

 

2 votes for:

1. incompetent German nobility
   
   
2. the Treaty of Versailles, because it was no peace treaty

 

What led to the many downfalls in German history?
I am not talking of the year 2023 - or this century.
I have in mind the whole history of Germany since about around 800 after Christ.
And there have been many downfalls since then.

 

We Germans think in terms of centuries and millenniums - or millenniae ....

 

One word: Strudel.

"Otchky-potchky, itchky-pitch,
Pay attention to this witch.
A donkey takes you to a knight
Him you conquer in a fight.
Then you wed a princess who
Is even uglier than you.
Ha ha ha and cockadoodle,
The magic words are 'Apple Strudel"
William Steig

 

What if .....

What if World War One had never happened?

https://www.seeker.com/what-if-world-war-i-never-happened-1768742022.html

 

one vote - ( one of my votes) says: first and foremost the German peoples themselves - because of their dis-unity

Or better: The dis-unity of the German nobility.


And by that I mean: From a very early age on.

From the Middle Ages on.

While the neighbours of Germany formed their united countries, Germany went the opposite way and split up in hundreds of tiny territories.

When at last some kind of unity came again in 1871, it was a bit too little and too late.

 

Now: 46 views

 

Again:
What would the world look like today if WW1 never happened?

https://www.quora.com/What-would-the-world-look-like-today-if-WW1-never-happened

 

Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser

Here is the old Austrian Anthem :

 

And here is the text:


God Save Emperor Francis
God save Francis the emperor,
Our good Emperor Francis!
Long live Francis the emperor,
In the brightest splendour of happiness!
May sprigs of laurel bloom for him
As a garland of honour, wherever he goes.
God save Francis the emperor,
Our good Emperor Francis!

https://lyricstranslate.com/en/gott-erhalte-franz-den-kaiser-god-save-emperor-francis.html

 

It's pretty certain the monarchies of Europe would have been overthrown. People prefer democracy and Republics.

 

Well that's your answer: time.

That's a long time and if you check the history of most countries going back that far, you'll probably find many different "downfalls," calamities, and disasters.

 

World War I was the beginning of the end of Western civilization. If that war had managed to be avoided the European colonial empires might still be in existence and the West would be unchallenged by China for world supremacy.

It might be technologically weaker however, given the lack of wars to spur technological growth and the atomic bomb would likely have never been invented.

 

Here's the information that most foreigners accept as the truth about when Germany became a unified nation for the first time.
https://history.state.gov/countries...nd final act,the Palace at Versailles, France.

Do Germans today believe that their country was unified in 800 AD? I guess you're talking about the Holy Roman Empire, under Emperor Charlemagne?