things that everyone pretty much knows: the treaty of Versailles was unnecessarily cruel. it’s intention was to prevent Germany from becoming a rival power to England
in its cruelty, it laid the seeds for the Second World War people know this but they avert their gaze from the specifics. and there are a lot of specifics to turn away from
the way the rich of the world flew into Berlin to prey on its women and children. The way the financial elites could escape hyperinflation through their ability to do fx swaps etc
I imagine if I was there and saw the child brothels, the exploitation, the enforced poverty and humiliation, I would have felt rage too
we often tell the post ww1 German story in two parts but never (really) connect them at any sort of emotional or humane level. I think we need to
The post ww2 consensus narrative is breaking down. that's a big deal because its basically been the moral foundation for the west for the last century
the goal shouldn't be to somehow make the nazis the good guys, but we need to revisit the story because every time someone veers even a little to the right of consensus they are immediately labeled a “nazi” or a “fascist”
So ok, let’s talk about that as adults. Who really were the Nazis? Why did they do what they did? Let's stop with the explanations that they were “pure evil” with no redeeming qualities. a nation turned suddenly irredeemably psychopathic
they were a reaction to a time that felt profound humiliation and exploitation. Let’s talk about it as a whole, in context.
A lot of people feel similar things today. Epstein and his island, the Sacklers and opiates, Onlyfans/pornhub…these feel to many like indicator species of a sick ecosystem much like child brothels were to pre1933 Germany