June 26, 2026 • 48 mins
John Ellis talks with historian David Blackbourn, author of Germany in the World: A Global History, 1500-2000, about five centuries of German history viewed through a global lens. They discuss Germany before there was a German state; the role of merchants, soldiers, missionaries, commodities and culture; the rupture of 1914; the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust’s international machinery; and the country’s postwar rebuilding, division and reunification. The conversation then turns to the German model today: dependence on America, Russia and China, Merkel’s legacy, Ukraine, the AfD, Europe’s economic sclerosis, and whether Germany can still attract talent and reinvent itself.
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SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Hello and welcome back to the News Items Podcast.
I'm John Ellis.
I am the founder and editor oftwo Substack newsletters.
One is called News Items, theother is called Political News
Items, and you can find themboth at news-items.com.
Our guest today is David GordonBlackbourne.
(00:20):
Mr.
Blackbourne is the CorneliusVanderbilt Distinguished Chair
of History at VanderbiltUniversity, where he teaches
modern German and Europeanhistory.
Prior to arriving at Vanderbilt,Mr.
Blackbourne was the CoolidgeProfessor of History at Harvard
University.
He is the author of seven books,and the one we're going to
discuss today is entitledGermany and the World, A Global
(00:44):
History, 1500 to 2000.
So the idea of writing Germanyand the World over the course of
500 years strikes me as anenormously intimidating
undertaking.
What caused you to do it?
SPEAKER_00 (00:59):
It is certainly an immodest undertaking.
I think there are two parts tothe answer, really.
One is, as you'd expect,contemporary events.
All history is contemporaryhistory.
This era of globalizationprompted me to think about
Germany in these terms.
But history, the discipline ofhistory, moves to its own
rhythms, and I I was curiousabout what it would look like to
(01:23):
step back from seeing thehistory of a country within its
own, just within its ownborders, and and as a sort of
intellectual experiment.
So it was driven by both ofthose.
And the long time span issomething dear to my heart
because I wrote a piece a fewyears ago called Honey I Shrunk
German History, where Iregretted the fact that so much
(01:44):
something like three-quarters ofall the books and articles and
conference papers on Germanhistory these days deal with the
20th or early 21st century.
And I don't want us to lose thatearlier period.
So that's a variety of thingswent into the sort of the
spatial and the temporal designof the book.
SPEAKER_01 (02:02):
And you say it's German history through a global
lens.
What what makes that differentthan previous major works about
Germany?
SPEAKER_00 (02:10):
I think once once you look at the many, many ways
in which Germans were active inthe world, in Europe, but also
beyond Europe, you know, you yous there are so many different
ways in which Germans wereactive, as merchants, as
settlers, as auxiliary soldiersfor other people's armies, from
the Portuguese and Spanish up tothe famous Hessians who fought
(02:33):
for the British and for theDutch as well.
Soldiers and settlers,missionaries, scientists.
You get a sense of of a countrywhich in the past was always
seen as being landlocked in thesixteenth and seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries.
You know, the other Spanish,Portuguese, Dutch, British went
out and and made their madetheir place for themselves as
(02:54):
colonizers, and the Germans areseen as landlocked.
But they weren't.
They were there.
They were sort of there withinthe folds of other people's
empires all along.
Which is why one of the things Ithink I coined the phrase the
German Atlantic.
Nobody really had thought abouta German Atlantic, I think,
before, because there's noGerman flag.
(03:15):
It's the Germans are alwaysthere within other people's
empires.
SPEAKER_01 (03:19):
Aaron Ross Powell And they're everywhere, right?
I mean, one of the fascinatingthings about the book is that
major characters in the book arecommodities and spices and
things that you I mean, readingGerman history, I don't think
you know one would think uhcommodities and spices would
would be such a constant themethroughout the book, but it is.
SPEAKER_00 (03:39):
Aaron Ross Powell Yes.
I like the history ofcommodities, which in in some
ways, this will be familiar tomy history colleagues.
In some ways, commodity historyhas become the new economic
history.
You know, commodities uh aregreat for telling a story.
You know, where do they comefrom?
How are they produced?
How are they shipped?
Who consumes them?
And from pepper and spices andcoffee and sugar in those
(04:02):
earlier periods through toGerman Volkswagens and washing
machines and Falker socks in themodern period, commodities tell
tell a story.
So that's one of the themes I Iknow you've you've you've read
the book, one of the themes thatsort of runs it's a running
theme really through the book,uh the movement of goods,
commodities, as well as themovement of of people, emigres
(04:25):
and exiles, and the people I'vementioned, the soldiers, the
merchants, and so on.
SPEAKER_01 (04:30):
Aaron Ross Powell Every country has its eras.
What what are the four or fivemajor eras of 500 years of
German history?
SPEAKER_00 (04:38):
Aaron Ross Powell That's a very interesting
question, trying to define theperiods for German history.
It's more difficult, I think,than it is for other countries
because there is no Germannation state until later in the
19th century, although there areproto-forms of this.
I would say, I mean, I dividethe book really into four
(04:59):
periods.
Um this early period wherewithin the Holy Roman Empire
there are many, many differentstates, many of them sort of
micro-states.
Germans are playing a role inthe world, but there is no
overarching German entity, noGerman flag.
So that's that's really thefirst part of the book.
It's the very important role ofGermans within a modernizing
(05:22):
world.
And think of think of theReformation and think of the
printing press, the two thingsthat are made in Germany.
Then I think there's atransition period of the late
18th and 19th century.
Germany becomes identified aboveall as as the land of of writers
and and thinkers.
And that's there's a sort ofnimbus of of authority that
(05:43):
attaches to German culture,which lasts right through the
nineteenth century and into thetwentieth.
Then the the nineteenth century,the age of nationalism, and I
think nineteen fourteen.
I I'm a firm believer thatnineteen fourteen, the World War
I, is uh an absolute break ofcesura.
And that raises questions thatwe probably won't go into about
(06:06):
continuities.
I mean I think sort of the worldstarts over in uh for for
Germans in in 1914.
So uh that the the twentiethcentury broken by World War II
and the new beginnings after1945 is is the is another
chapter.
Because you will be asking melater, I think, about uh what
happens in the end of thetwentieth century and what's
(06:29):
happening today.
But that's that's how I dividethe the book.
SPEAKER_01 (06:32):
Aaron Ross Powell And 1914 because just because of
the war or because of theconsequences of the war?
SPEAKER_00 (06:40):
Both.
I think until the war there isstill uh huge admiration for
Germany, for its industry andits what are then the new
industries, for its education,for its universities, all those
American and British studentswho go to German universities to
do PhDs.
Admiration for its bureaucracy,its science, and for its
(07:00):
culture, for its for its music.
I mean, uh in the book I have, Ithink, the very touching story
of Emily Bronte sitting in thiscramped parsonage in the
Yorkshire Dales, learning Germanso that she could read the
literature of this of thisculture in in the original
language.
That lingers through to 1914,and I think 1914 damages that
(07:24):
reputation not terminally, butit it it really it really
damages it severely.
And then the consequences of thewar, Versailles Treaty, the
resentment in Germany, and thisopening the door to to the
demagogue, to Hitler and theNazis, that I think it is
something new.
I mean, historians in Germanyargue a lot about the degree to
(07:45):
which there are forerunners ofthe National Socialists.
And there are certainly examplesof demagogues and of
anti-Semitism and of populistmovements before 1914.
But it's the war and theconsequences which really create
the preconditions, along withand the depression, the
preconditions for for the Nazis.
SPEAKER_01 (08:03):
Aaron Ross Powell, I mean everybody thinks that they
know the history of of the 30sand then uh the Second World
War, the Holocaust, etc.
In the course of doing thisbook, what did you learn that
made you think differently aboutthe rise of the Nazis, the
Holocaust, and the war?
SPEAKER_00 (08:21):
Aaron Ross Powell I don't want to claim too much
originality for the for thebook.
And I I think the book in manyways it highlights and
synthesizes what we're coming tosee as the, if you want, the
global setting for NationalSocialism, both its origins and
its practice.
And see, above all, it's themost notorious instance, the
(08:41):
Holocaust.
I mean, when it comes toorigins, it's it's significant
that that Hitler admired ChiangKai shek, he admired Atatürk, he
admired Henry Ford and otherAmerican racists and
anti-Semites.
There is a global background tohis his thinking, and National
Socialism is one of a a numberof fascist movements.
(09:04):
I mean Hitler's initially agreat admirer of Mussolini and
very much a kind of juniorpartner, if you want, in the
international fascist movement.
It's only after the middle ofthe 90s that Hitler becomes
indisputably Europe's leadingfascist rather than Mussolini.
And the brown shirts sitalongside the various green
shirts, grey shirts, blue shirtsof fascist movements all the way
(09:27):
across Europe.
So that's part of it.
But you mentioned the Holocaust,which of course is the great
testing ground now for thinkingabout National Socialism.
I would actually say beyondthat, that whereas once the
French Revolution was the placewhere historians tried out ideas
for how we explain the modernworld, the Holocaust in some
(09:50):
ways has now taken thatposition.
What I argue, as I say, this isI didn't come up with this on my
own.
What I think is now broadlyaccepted is that although the
Holocaust was a German directedenterprise, we cannot see it in
its full scope withoutrecognizing how it couldn't have
taken place without non-Germanhelpers who guarded the camps,
(10:14):
who served as local policeforces and militias, who rounded
up Jews and put them ontodeportation trains, and foreign
insurance companies which helpedto loot Jewish property and and
so on.
This is not in any way to weakenor undermine arguments about the
the the German nature of thisenterprise, but simply to spread
(10:35):
spread the responsibility wider,and I think that's I think
that's very much in line withthe the way that modern
scholarship is is going, bothwithin Germany to emphasize the
role of people who were not justNazis and SS people, but
ordinary Germans, butinternationally to recognize the
role of the many, manyauxiliaries, non-Germans, who
(10:55):
were essential to this process.
There were very few Germans inthe death camps, for example.
Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
SPEAKER_01 (11:00):
I was stunned to read that Hitler was a junior
partner to Ms.
Mussolini, that he was you know,that Mussolini was the the
larger fascist figure and theand that uh Hitler was the
junior partner up until, as yousay, the what the transition
that took place.
What what changed that madeHitler the senior figure and
(11:22):
Mussolini eventually a minorfigure?
SPEAKER_00 (11:25):
Yeah.
That's that's very that's veryhard to answer.
I mean I I think the partly it'sthe the sheer kind of energy and
speed with which the Nazis uhimplemented their policies after
after 1933 and the the hugepropaganda effort that went into
things like the the Autobahn andthen into the uh hosting the the
(11:48):
the Olympics, of course, in in1936.
I think what accompanied thischanging roles of of the junior
partner and the senior partneris also the resonance that Nazi
racial theory and the Nuremberglaws played with fascist parties
elsewhere.
I mean the British Union ofFascists, to take an example.
In the early 1930s, they werestill emphasizing Italian
(12:12):
fascist slogans of corporatismand so on.
They really start to mimic andecho Nazi racial language
increasingly from say around1935.
I mean, I'm not sure that I havea uh straightforward answer to
that, but I w I would certainlysay that the sort of the energy
dynamism that the Nazis projectinternationally is is an
(12:34):
important part of that.
SPEAKER_01 (12:35):
Aaron Ross Powell I was fascinated as well by a a
nation now decimated by WorldWar II, uh surrender to the
Allies, and you know what therethey are, then now been divided
into East Germany and WestGermany.
And how did it rebuild?
How did it uh come out ofdevastation?
I mean, there's no other wordfor it, in such a short period
(12:57):
of time, relatively speaking.
SPEAKER_00 (12:58):
Yeah.
And it's uh big question, andit's it rebuilds in two very
different ways, both of themsuccessful within the blocks
that they belong to.
The answer is that each wasembedded firmly within its
within its block.
It's not if we take the FederalRepublic, the the Germany that I
(13:19):
I identify obviously morestrongly with, the one where I
spent time I first went there inthe uh in the 1960s as part of a
a school exchange.
And the great turning pointinitially was Adenau deciding
that he would identify with theWest.
I mean there have been a numberof turning points, and that was
the key one in in the 50s, thatGermany would no longer go its
(13:41):
own way, but would identifyitself with the West, with
Atlanticism.
And I think subsequent turningpoints, Philibrandt in the
1970s, with the decision to gofor rapprochement, the
Ostpolitik with Russia isanother turning point, just as
you will come to this later, Ithink, but the tremendous
importance in the early years ofHelmut Kohl's decision that
(14:03):
unified Germany would embeditself within uh European within
the developing European Union inorder to to disarm fears about
what Germany could become.
But going back to Adna, thatthat lays the foundations for
for the emergence of a uh ofeconomic dynamism, the so-called
(14:24):
Wirtschaftswunder, the economicmiracle.
The current common sense ofhistorians is that we shouldn't
overemphasize the degree towhich West Germans were getting
wealthy in the nineteen fifties.
Much of it was coming really inthe sixties and even the
seventies.
But compared with, as you say,the utter devastation and the
the black market, the well, thethe ruined the ruined landscapes
(14:45):
that are familiar to anyonewho's seen photographs of that
period.
It's a remarkable turnaround.
And without going into too muchdetail, I mean the the East
Germans, in retrospect, we cansee all the failings of the
system.
But not only sympatheticsocialist commentators, but
institutions like the World Bankconsistently saw the GDR East
Germany as a relativelysuccessful socialist economy
(15:09):
relative to to other parts ofthe Soviet Soviet bloc.
But I don't want to go on toolong, so let me hand it back to
you.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01 (15:17):
Well, I wanted to get to the 1990 and German
reunification.
Helmut Cole, I think, goes to orspeaks with President, then
President George H.
W.
Bush and George H.
W.
Bush and Secretary Baker,Secretary James Baker, are
initially, I think, a littlewary of reunification, uh, but
(15:42):
eventually Bush and Cole, Idon't know quite how you
describe this, but they decideto go ahead, if you will, Cole
being a critical figure,obviously.
Can you describe to us how thatcame about?
I I just think it's an amazingshift in European history that,
you know, you have these twostates now reunited with the
(16:02):
collapse of the Soviet Unionshortly thereafter.
You know, the Germany is nolonger a neighbor, it's
buffered, and therefore thethreat of Russia diminishes, at
least in theory.
SPEAKER_00 (16:13):
Trevor Burrus, Jr.: One of the things I'd I'd I'd
like to start by saying is thatwe always talk about lessons
from history, learning from thepast.
But one of the things thatprofessional historians can take
pleasure in at these greatturning points is to look at the
light which the present throwson the past.
(16:34):
And I I remember that year,1989-90, very, very well.
I was in Stanford as a visitingprofessor, and we were having
regular lunchtime gatherings,and we had no idea what would
happen.
Will East Germany disappear?
Will it will there be some kindof reformed socialist state of
the kind that the reformers,figures like Christopholf, would
(16:54):
have preferred, or will itsimply disappear?
We didn't know.
History was, as it always is,open-ended until events actually
happen.
And I actually felt that Ilearned a lot about Bismarck and
unification of the 1860s and the1871 settlement from 1989-90.
And I think I'm not not alone inthat.
(17:15):
No, I mean, you're you're rightto emphasize the turning point,
and if George H.
W.
Bush had some nervousness, itwas as nothing compared with the
nervousness of of Mr.
Gorbachev, but also of theFrench, and not least of of
Margaret Thatcher, who hadprofound misgivings.
I think she gave up heropposition.
(17:36):
I think Mr.
Gorbachev gave up his oppositionearlier than uh earlier than
than Margaret Thatcher did.
I think a combination of reasonsexplains how it ended as it did.
Partly just the lack of statecapacity in East Germany, made
it hard to imagine that thatstate could continue to exist as
an independent entity, and thepeople of East Germany
(17:58):
increasingly, and for economicreasons, wanted to uh wanted to
join the West.
And as for the internationaldimension, Timothy Garten Ash,
who was one of the great expertson on this, talks that's
slightly I won't say that he's acynic, but he does talk about
the way in which the FederalRepublic, in a sense, bought off
(18:20):
the Soviets with very generousuh economic aid packages and so
on.
I think a combination of a charmoffensive of economic of ec
economic incentives and thesheer implosion of the East
German state.
At a certain point in the springof 1990, it became clear that
there would there would bereunification, and then the only
(18:43):
question was on what terms?
And I think essentially theterms on which it took place
were very much those of the oldFederal the old Federal
Republic, so that it was anabsorption of East Germany on
the terms set by by WestGermany.
SPEAKER_01 (18:58):
So Germany is reunified, the threat, if you
will, of the of the Soviet Unionslash Russia diminishes with the
collapse of the Soviet Union,the end of history has arrived,
and this sort of, I don't knowwhat you would call a Davos
consensus emerges.
And the German model is U.S.
(19:20):
for security, Russia for energy,China for markets.
How much of that is is accurate?
And uh what what impact did ithave on policy making amongst
the policy makers in Germany?
SPEAKER_00 (19:32):
No, I mean that's uh there are a number of celebrated
quips about Germany.
One is Henry Kissinger'sGermany's too big for Europe,
too small for the world.
Interesting comment.
And then the one that you citeuh is I think Constanza Steltson
Müller, this commentator, saidthat Germany outsourced its
defense to the US, its uh itsenergy needs to Russia, and it
(19:54):
its uh economic export needs toto China.
I think it's an accuratedescription, um, was it it
describes what would laterbecome problematic once the
perhaps the complacency of thenineteen nineties about the end
of history and globalization wasbound to lead to some kind of
(20:14):
convergence and the Chinese andRussians would eventually get
with the program.
A complacency in Germany that ofcourse was was shared in the in
the Western in the Westernworld.
You know, Monday morningquarterbacking is you know, is
is easy.
I mean it it worked.
It worked as a model, and Iwould say that in the German
(20:35):
case there is a pattern in thehistory of the Federal Republic,
the old Federal Republic, and itcontinues after 1990, this
desire to to be friends witheveryone, to be part of every
multinational agreement, to bein NATO, to be in Europe, to
have good relations though withthe Russians too, have good
relations with the Chinese.
This desire to I mean it's it'spart of a I think a quite
(20:59):
conscious throwing off of a of abad, dark history.
And so the reunified FederalRepublic fits perfectly.
It's a kind of poster child forthat globalizing complacency of
the nineteen nineties and theearly twenty-first century until
suddenly it's upended by a wholeseries of crises.
(21:20):
The recession, the the RussianEmpire increasingly showing its
fangs, COVID.
Um I mean a whole series of ofshocks to the system, which we
may go into in detail, but yeah.
It is I would say that Germanynot only shares, but is a
particularly powerfulillustration of that, of of the
complacency of that era.
(21:41):
And the description of of thedependency on those those three
countries is absolutelyaccurate, I think.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01 (21:47):
My friend Walter Mead wrote a famous essay when
she described the blue model asbig government, big comp big
corporations, and big laborworking together to you know
improve living.
standards and you know, progrmake progress on every front,
and that it worked for a longtime and then it didn't.
It it broke down.
(22:08):
The German blue model seemssimilar.
What when did you think thatsort of began to break down?
I'm I'm curious as to you know,now it seems like the Germany's
economy has no sort of venturecapital dynamism, if you will,
despite having enormousintellectual capital, and I
(22:29):
think a lot of people think thatthe reason for that is
Volkswagens of the world, BSBASF, etc., in concert with the
labor unions and in concert withthe political system, have sort
of gamed the system to theiradvantage at the cost of uh, you
know, innovation, dynamism,whatever you want to call it.
(22:49):
Is that is that roughly true?
SPEAKER_00 (22:51):
Or I have mixed feelings about this.
I mean I read figures likeWolfgang Gunshau for whom I have
great respect, and others likehim who emphasize precisely
this.
And there's there's clearly sometruth in it.
Germany privileged the olderindustries in which they were
very good.
I mean the the exports to China,you know, f forty percent of
(23:13):
Volkswagen's uh income came fromexports to to China.
They were very good atpharmaceuticals and automobiles
and equipment.
I mean Siemens is still aglobally significant country,
one of the largest in the worldit builds, you know, it builds
wind turbines, it builds subwaysin Riyadh, it builds it builds
(23:34):
the get uh CAT scanned on in inhospitals.
Yes, Germany got left behindwhen it came to biotech, AI, and
that's partly a Europeanphenomenon.
One of the explanations for it,I think, is the absence, if you
compare the EU with either theUS or China, they have single
capital markets.
(23:54):
The EU has eight differentcurrencies, one of which is the
Euro, and then you've got, youknow, you've got the the British
pound and the Swiss franc andthe Norwegian krona on top of
that.
It's been regarded as plausiblethe arguments that it's simply
impossible for any bank inEurope, whether it's the largest
bank in Germany or France orBritain, to fund a Meta or a
(24:17):
Nvidia or Apple on the scale inwhich they can be or or indeed
the their Chinese equivalents,ten cents and so on.
Impossible to fund them to thesame degree.
So partly this is a matter ofthe absence of a single capital
market in Europe.
But they have been left behindand there are certain arguments
to be made about bureaucraticbloat.
(24:38):
I was in Germany we just gotback actually just on Sunday
night and in Berlin there are somany construction sites and
talking to a friend there, umthe friend was saying rather
caustically that the reason forso many construction sites is
that you you have to acquire apermit to construct a
construction site but then youhave to acquire another permit
(24:59):
to construct a construction onyour construction site at one
institution I won't I won't nameit, but a cultural institution
in the German capital wheretheir main building is closed
for renovations.
They're they've been told thatit should be ready for them to
reoccupy in 2031.
But they think that this may bea bit optimistic because it's
(25:21):
only five years away.
So even as a good old socialdemocrat as I am I recognize the
problems of bureaucraticrigidity.
They are of course not unique toGermany some of what people
argue about Germany would befamiliar to readers of you know
Ezra Klein and the abundance youknow getting stuff built it's so
hard.
And I I would add a particularGerman problem which is this
(25:44):
austerity obsession and I thinkit goes back to the inflation
period this fear of funny money.
And as you know I mean of of allthe G7 countries Germany has by
far the healthiest publicfinances.
I mean if you compare it withthe US or Britain or France,
they're all basket cases reallyby comparison with Germany
(26:05):
Germany should have used itsmoney to spend it wisely on RD,
on infrastructure, getting thoserailways and bridges repaired,
especially the railways it's nowa standing joke in Germany the
Deutsche Bahn, everybody hasstories about cancellations and
delays.
The Germans joke about it.
So they should have spent themoney they should have boosted
(26:26):
domestic demand more rather thanjust being the export behemoth.
So the critique the critique ofthe sort of the the sclerosis is
accurate but let me just end bybriefly stating the case against
Germany is still the world'snumber three economy.
It's the world's number twoeconomy if you measure it by GDP
(26:47):
per capita after the US It hasglobal brands which everybody
recognizes it's reinventeditself in the past I think it
can do so again.
Germany is, I think, takingsteps now to free itself when
it's freed itself from theRussian energy source, retooled
its ports to bring in liquefiednatural gas.
(27:07):
And I think both Scholz and nowMerz have been trying very hard
to connect with other tradepartners with India with the
Saudis and the Emirates withLatin Americans.
So all is not lost.
I mean I I think it's possibleto be too pessimistic about the
German economy on the politicsof the Blue State you know
(27:28):
Winston Churchill once saidfamously democracy is the worst
system of government everinvented except for all the
others and I I would say socialdemocracy is the worst system
ever invented except for all theothers.
I'm a a fairly unrepentantsocial democrat.
You'd have to say that socialdemocracy is not thriving at the
moment but that's that's notjust a German story and perhaps
(27:51):
perhaps you'll want to come onto the the the politics before
we end this.
SPEAKER_01 (27:56):
Well I did want to ask I mean Anula Merkel is a
huge figure in the post uh inthe 21st century.
What accounts for her rise, Iguess, and then what accounts
for her extraordinary longevitypolitically and and then one
should say something about thelegacy because there is a there
(28:17):
is now a sort of nostalgia wave,I think, for the Merkel years.
SPEAKER_00 (28:22):
I mean she it's interesting isn't it the uh the
the fact that these powerfulfemale leaders have so often
risen in parties of the centerright rather than parties of the
center left and so she fits shefits that pattern.
She uh she her reputation wasabove all that of a safe pair of
(28:43):
hands.
Merz was the more right wingrival and was seen, ironically
perhaps from today'sperspective, Merz was seen as a
more difficult, divisive,prickly figure, more
ideological, more right wing.
So she was a technocrat andextraordinarily talented at
marginalizing critics, acquiredthis reputation as a safe pair
(29:05):
of hands, and you can probablyhear the bot coming I mean I I
knew you'd ask me about Merkeland it occurred to me a str a
strange analogy was with Ottovon Bismarck that after he'd
gone, people said, oh why don'twe have leaders like that
anymore?
He was such a powerfuldominating figure and the people
who came after were so muchlesser.
But it's I think fairly apparentto historians now that for all
(29:28):
Bismarck's genuine qualities,many of the problems of his succ
that his successors faced wereproblems that arose because of
him and because of his twentyyears in power.
And I think I do I I don't knowthat anybody else has made this
analogy, but it is certainly thecase that people are now
pointing to various problemsthat Merkel left behind.
(29:50):
I mean there's two veryimpulsive decisions that she
made it's strange this this sortof Mutti, the safe pair of hands
twice behaved very impulsivelyonce after Fukushima that
Germany will instantly get outof nuclear power, which in
retrospect was a a foolishdecision, very foolish, and I
think the environmentalistswould accept that but the other
(30:13):
m this is more controversial,the other is the complacency
with which in August 2015, whenGermany proceeded to admit one
million Syrians, a shuffled uswe we can do this, criticized
even at the time actually bysome social democrats as going
too far too quickly, throwingoff the Dublin protocols and and
(30:34):
opening the door to AFD to theto the far right.
But I mean the larger pointbefore I go on too long but the
larger point I think is peoplenow talk about a wasted golden
decade.
After the Eurozone crisis, afterthe financial crisis, so let's
say from 2009 for the next tenyears, Merkel's in power and
things don't change.
(30:55):
That's when Germany should havebeen trying to make more of a
transition towards EVs, AI andso on.
So wasted opportunities.
So she is a great powerfulfigure, but I would just add one
other thing as someone who likedthe old Federal Republic, which
had two major ChristianDemocratic leaders who were from
the Rhineland, Adenauer andKohl, they were from the
(31:18):
Rhineland and I think had a kindof sense for Europe and
especially for the Frenchconnection but not only that
Merkel didn't have coming as shedid from the former East
Germany.
So fans of Angela Merkel,including the 35,000 people who
bought her autobiography on thefirst day will probably not like
what I've just said but I I havecriticisms.
(31:40):
Yeah.
And there are huge lines for herto sign the book.
Yeah it's the Merkel nostalgiayou know the nostalgia for the
for a an imagined better Germanyand of course it it was in many
ways a less fraught and crisisridden Germany.
SPEAKER_01 (31:56):
So as we were going back and forth you said to me
that you thought I would askabout Ukraine and of course I
was going to ask about Ukrainebut the Ukraine that I was
thinking about was Crimea in2014?
And th that was seems to me ahinge point in modern German
(32:18):
history.
Am I right about that or is itnot is it not that important?
SPEAKER_00 (32:22):
I think it was, although it's I think because of
the sheer overwhelming presenceof of the war since February
2022, some of the earlier stagesof Soviet attacks on Georgia and
then the the seizure of Crimeaand what turned out to be the
fruitless efforts of Germany andFrance with you know with the
(32:43):
Normandy Accords and the MinskAgreements and so on broken by
Putin, they tend to beoverlooked.
I think you're right that um theWest should and here again
Merkel is important, the Westshould have been more critical
of the Russian threat earlier.
But you can always understandwhy in the German case there is
(33:03):
a reluctance to be critical ofRussia as of the Soviet Union
before the tradition ofOstpolitik um the thing that I
mentioned earlier the mostobsessive German desire to be
friends with everyone East andWest.
So I I have some sympathy forMerkel's unwillingness to take a
bolder stance.
(33:24):
But I think you're right thatthat shouldn't be forgotten,
even as we recognize how Germanyhas stepped up and been a very
important leader and a leaderwithin Europe when it comes to
supporting Ukraine sinceFebruary 2022.
SPEAKER_01 (33:41):
I think the German support for Ukraine in the
current conflict, which has nowamazingly gone longer than World
War I was astonished by thatlittle fact.
It's been remarkable given thepolitical pressure from the
right as what what accounts forit?
Why has the the leadership beenso I mean not obviously not a
(34:04):
hundred percent, but more thananyone else in Europe, Germany
has stepped up.
What what are the politicaldynamics of that aren't they or
I'm not quite sure I have thequestion right here, but given
the rise of the right inGermany, it would seem that the
leadership would be morecircumspect or flexible or
whatever the right word is aboutsupporting Ukraine, but the the
(34:25):
German government has beenalmost uniformly strong.
SPEAKER_00 (34:28):
Aaron Ross Powell Yes.
It's it's it's interesting thatthat you do frame it that way.
It it it isn't often framed thatway and it really makes you
think I mean one one answerwould be political will, which
we shouldn't underestimate thatGerman leaders have have not
taken the path of leastresistance is a matter of
political will and all creditthere.
(34:49):
But I you you could in facttrace this back to the way in
which since reunification Germanleaders have bit by bit nailed
their colours to the mast whenit came to supporting
humanitarian interventions,which of course for a long time
Germans uh refused to refuse totake part in any kind of out of
(35:11):
area operations and there waseven a question of whether the
Supreme Court in Germany wouldpermit them.
And that's all been resolved andI mean one of the things I write
about in the in the book is howfrom I mean from the time of
Kosovo onwards, step by step,Germans have come to assert the
importance of internationalinitiatives to support
(35:34):
essentially democraticdemocratic sovereign states
against aggressors.
And that includes Kosovo itincludes other examples, for
example Afghanistan.
So it's there's an ideologicalbackground which is a background
of bit by bit stepping away fromthe the desire never to engage
(35:56):
in ways that could be criticizedwith the outer world.
And it's also a question ofpolitical will.
SPEAKER_01 (36:01):
Aaron Ross Powell I want to follow up but in a
different sort of way which isthe AFD which is rising in the
polls at least has taken apro-Russian view of the war.
I think that's fair to say wellmy question is is is that viable
politically can you bepro-Russian in the current
(36:22):
German environment given a warthat's gone on longer than World
War I, clearly a war of choiceon Putin's part and given the
massive unpopularity ofPresident Trump pre and now post
the Iran war, if if indeed thewar Iran war is over, which I
don't suspect it is, but i is isthere a sort of ceiling for the
(36:45):
AFD or is there room for themstill to grow?
I hope there's a ceiling.
SPEAKER_00 (36:49):
It hasn't been a straightforward linear rise.
There's a volatility to the votefor AFD as I think there is to
equivalent movements.
I mean as you know this is AFDis the German version of what's
happening in in many other partsof Europe.
I mean in in the Netherlands, inFrance and in the country that I
was born in with reform,restore, reclaim all these far
(37:13):
right movements which havealmost eclipsed the Conservative
party I think I believe, butmaybe I want to believe that AFD
has reached its natural sceningnow.
What I am heartened by is theway that the firewall has held
of the the other parties.
And I mean there's a strikingexample in Turingia one of the
(37:35):
former East German lender whereAFD is stronger as you know than
in the West.
There's a coalition there of notonly of the Christian Democrats
and the Social Democrats butalso of this breakaway left-wing
group, the Sahra WagenknechtAlliance.
Those three have half of exactlyhalf of the seats and they are
(37:55):
in coalition government which istolerated by De Linca, the far
left party.
All of this to um to marginalizeAFD which is the largest single
party.
There have been some ChristianDemocrats who've talked about
admitting AFD to government onthe grounds that they will give
them some power and they willbehave more moderately.
I think that the model there isis Maloney in Italy.
(38:17):
A dangerous argument I thinkbecause AFD is considerably to
the right of of Maloney.
I mean it wants to leave NATOand the EU and is um a racist
party.
These Christian Democrats who'vetalked about bringing into power
are very much very much aminority voice and I expect that
to remain the case.
(38:37):
I mean it's a I'm notcomplacent, but I I mean it it
is a it's a dangerous party andit it has to be met with
political arguments and not II've had various conversations
in the last two weeks in Germanywith Germans who've who would
like it to be banned.
I think that's terriblepolitics.
You can't ban can't ban a partythat millions and millions of
(38:59):
Germans vote for out offrustration and anger.
You have to you have to meetthem with arguments and there
are various fronts on which Ithink they should do that.
So I don't know if they'vereached the peak.
SPEAKER_01 (39:12):
I I hope they have I was interested to read in the FT
I don't know when you know lastweek or so that Der Linke, is
that right the left wing party?
Der Linke has attracted a largefollowing among the youth of
Germany which I guess is definedas eighteen to twenty five or
eighteen to twenty nine year oldpeople.
(39:34):
Is that is that true?
SPEAKER_00 (39:35):
Yes.
I mean I think wh ha this againis the German variant of
something that's uh a l a alarger phenomenon in in the
West.
I think of the way that theGreen Party in in Britain, which
is basically now it's like DeLinka.
I mean it's a it's not anecological party anymore.
It's a party of party of theleft-wing labor exiles and of
(39:58):
the the trans activists and uhand of Muslims in fact.
Or you think of the DemocraticSocialists of America and the uh
success of of some charismaticleft-wing figures.
Uh and De Linka has attracted,yes, youth who are clearly
dissatisfied with boring oldsocial democracy.
And I understand that.
I mean it one of my one of myhobby horses is that once upon a
(40:21):
time in the 1970s all thecharismatic politicians were
social democrats.
Willy Brandt, Olaf Palmer, GoffWhitlam in Australia, all your
Australian listeners willinstantly nod, you know, the
most transformational figure.
And now we have Keir Starmer andOlaf Schultz.
These are not charismaticfigures and the and the Social
Democrats seem to have run outof ideas and the youth but some
(40:44):
of the youth are going to AFD aswell.
Let's not forget that.
So that's that has itscounterpart in other countries
as well, doesn't it?
Including including this oneyouth going to the more left
side of the Democratic Party butalso some youth attracted to
MAGA.
SPEAKER_01 (41:00):
Yes yeah no it's interest i the politics here are
interesting because Gallup did apoll of public figures do you
have a favorable or unfavorableview of X, Y, and Z.
And the two public figures thatwere had net positive favorable
ratings were Pope Leo, nosurprise there, and the other
(41:22):
was Bernie Sanders.
Everybody else was negative.
So it's this it's you knowthere's there's something going
on on the left and Sandersobviously is himself and he's
run twice for president and hasa following and is seen as I
hate the word but authentic.
Yes but but the a man who iselected to the U.S.
(41:47):
Senate from Vermont and runs onthe independence socialist line
is not something you wouldexpect in the U.S.
I wanted to ask you one lastquestion.
One of my hobby horses I guessyou would say is that the Trump
administration's attacks onexpertise on academic
(42:09):
institutions, on science broadlyspeaking has made a lot of PhD
candidates, a lot of PhDs, a lotof faculty members, a lot of the
smartest people in the worldbasically, think about
relocating, leaving the U.S.
and going to work in England orFrance or Germany or Canada or
(42:31):
whatever.
Is is is that is Germanyreaching out to attract the I
hate the word reaching out.
I'm sorry I used it.
Is German is Germany putting outa welcome mat?
There you go welcome mat to thebrainiacs of America to get them
to come?
SPEAKER_00 (42:47):
Would will you permit me a quick comment about
Maine?
I have to believe that there issomething in between 78-year-old
Janet Mills and Graham Platner.
There's something different inboth age and politics and that
to me is is a problem.
But I would say that wouldn't Ias an old as an old social
democrat who's looking for newleadership in people in their
40s and 50s.
(43:08):
But the welcome mat is certainlythere.
I mean one of the most wonderfulironies of history to me is the
significant number of youngliberal Jews who are relocating
from Israel to Germany.
Talk about talk about ironies ofironies of history.
I'm not aware that there is athat there's active attempt to
reach out.
(43:28):
I dislike the phrases you do.
You know this Anhold Ipsosnation brands survey I mean it's
a horrible idea too that nationsare brands.
But Germany scores very veryhighly on those as you know
first or second place.
There are many things that umthat attract people to this to
this cultural nation, thiswealthy nation.
(43:49):
I think German culturaldiplomacy is very effective.
It's uh you know there are 150Goethe institutes around the
world.
There is a certain magnetism andit's most obvious when it comes
To cultural figures likemusicians and conductors.
I think three-quarters of allthe orchestras in Germany are
conducted, you know, the musicdirectors are non-Germans and
(44:11):
non-Austrians.
I think that along with Canada,Australia, Britain, and other
places, uh, Germany will capturesome of that, some of that
talent that emigrates.
But some of the neoliberalcritics of Germany argue that
Germany itself is losing itsmore creative figures because of
this rigid bureaucracy.
(44:31):
So maybe swings and roundabouts.
SPEAKER_01 (44:33):
One of the themes of of your book is the uh is the
importance placed on and onintellectual capital, or another
horrible phrase, butuniversities, research, uh
intelligence generally bybrought together throughout the
nation's history or when itunified, obviously.
(44:55):
And and since it's been it'sbeen a real home to intellectual
activity, scientific research,etc.
SPEAKER_00 (45:04):
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (45:05):
That continues, right?
I mean that that's that's notstopped.
SPEAKER_00 (45:08):
Aaron Ross Powell Not at all.
And you were talking about youthas a group, and I not long ago
read an interesting survey, aninternational survey of 15 to 24
year olds and whether they wereoptimistic about the future.
And not surprisingly, I think,many of that generation in the
US and France and Britain werepessimistic.
(45:31):
German youth, 15 to 24 yearolds, were relatively
optimistic.
They compared more withMoroccans and Brazilians than
they did with French andAmericans Americans of the same
generation.
And one of the reasons for thatwas that they really believed
that education uh would permitsocial mobility, that they could
have lives at least as good astheir parents' lives if they
(45:53):
worked hard and were educated.
And that was that made Germanyan outlier among the advanced
capitalist countries.
So that is very much in linewith what you're talking about,
the um the importance attachedto education, culture.
Yes.
And one of the things that Iadmire about this country as
well.
SPEAKER_01 (46:13):
So what's your next book, or is that it?
SPEAKER_00 (46:16):
Aaron Ross Powell The next book, which is nearly
finished, is a much shorterbook.
I I'm I'm done with long books.
SPEAKER_01 (46:27):
I mean for your sake, not for my For my sake,
thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (46:30):
I appreciate the amendment.
Um it's a book called Wheels ofPower, and it has three
chapters, and it's it's thefirst book I've ever written
which is focused on the NationalSocialists, and it's literally
about the use of wheels in theseizure of power and then the
regime and the Holocaust, thatis to say, the use of um
motorbikes and trucks and carsfor propaganda and violence in
(46:52):
the seizure of power.
I mean it's more than it's not ahistory of technology.
It it's it's the wheels andtheir economic and social and
cultural significance.
Then I talk about the Autobahnand the Volkswagen project, and
then, of course, the uh thedeath trains.
So it's it's wheels.
Wheels of power.
SPEAKER_01 (47:10):
That's the name of the book.
SPEAKER_00 (47:12):
Watch out for it.
Yes.
I'm not sure what the subtitleis, but that's definitely going
to be the main title.
SPEAKER_01 (47:17):
When is it going to be published?
SPEAKER_00 (47:19):
It's the due date for the manuscript is next
spring, and I will probablyshock my agent and the publisher
by delivering ahead of time.
So I would think at the earliestnext fall, possibly even the
spring of 2028.
But uh say it is I've I'm nearlyfinished with a good first draft
now.
It'll be a 70,000-word book,much shorter than Germany in the
(47:41):
world.
SPEAKER_01 (47:43):
All right.
I think we've taken uh more thanenough of your time.
Thank you very much for doingthis.
And we would urge our readers tobuy Mr.
Blackborne's book, which isentitled Germany in the World of
Global History, 1500 to 2000.
It's enormously impressive.
It was described actually byTimothy Gartnash, is that right?
(48:05):
Gartenash as magnificent, whichI thought was accurate.
Thank you very much for doingthis.
SPEAKER_00 (48:10):
Well, thank you very much for having me on your
podcast.
I've enjoyed it very muchindeed.
Thank you.
Hello and welcome back to the News Items Podcast.
I'm John Ellis.
I am the founder and editor oftwo Substack newsletters.
One is called News Items, theother is called Political News
Items, and you can find themboth at news-items.com.
Our guest today is David GordonBlackbourne.
(00:20):
Mr.
Blackbourne is the CorneliusVanderbilt Distinguished Chair
of History at VanderbiltUniversity, where he teaches
modern German and Europeanhistory.
Prior to arriving at Vanderbilt,Mr.
Blackbourne was the CoolidgeProfessor of History at Harvard
University.
He is the author of seven books,and the one we're going to
discuss today is entitledGermany and the World, A Global
(00:44):
History, 1500 to 2000.
So the idea of writing Germanyand the World over the course of
500 years strikes me as anenormously intimidating
undertaking.
What caused you to do it?
SPEAKER_00 (00:59):
It is certainly an immodest undertaking.
I think there are two parts tothe answer, really.
One is, as you'd expect,contemporary events.
All history is contemporaryhistory.
This era of globalizationprompted me to think about
Germany in these terms.
But history, the discipline ofhistory, moves to its own
rhythms, and I I was curiousabout what it would look like to
(01:23):
step back from seeing thehistory of a country within its
own, just within its ownborders, and and as a sort of
intellectual experiment.
So it was driven by both ofthose.
And the long time span issomething dear to my heart
because I wrote a piece a fewyears ago called Honey I Shrunk
German History, where Iregretted the fact that so much
(01:44):
something like three-quarters ofall the books and articles and
conference papers on Germanhistory these days deal with the
20th or early 21st century.
And I don't want us to lose thatearlier period.
So that's a variety of thingswent into the sort of the
spatial and the temporal designof the book.
SPEAKER_01 (02:02):
And you say it's German history through a global
lens.
What what makes that differentthan previous major works about
Germany?
SPEAKER_00 (02:10):
I think once once you look at the many, many ways
in which Germans were active inthe world, in Europe, but also
beyond Europe, you know, you yous there are so many different
ways in which Germans wereactive, as merchants, as
settlers, as auxiliary soldiersfor other people's armies, from
the Portuguese and Spanish up tothe famous Hessians who fought
(02:33):
for the British and for theDutch as well.
Soldiers and settlers,missionaries, scientists.
You get a sense of of a countrywhich in the past was always
seen as being landlocked in thesixteenth and seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries.
You know, the other Spanish,Portuguese, Dutch, British went
out and and made their madetheir place for themselves as
(02:54):
colonizers, and the Germans areseen as landlocked.
But they weren't.
They were there.
They were sort of there withinthe folds of other people's
empires all along.
Which is why one of the things Ithink I coined the phrase the
German Atlantic.
Nobody really had thought abouta German Atlantic, I think,
before, because there's noGerman flag.
(03:15):
It's the Germans are alwaysthere within other people's
empires.
SPEAKER_01 (03:19):
Aaron Ross Powell And they're everywhere, right?
I mean, one of the fascinatingthings about the book is that
major characters in the book arecommodities and spices and
things that you I mean, readingGerman history, I don't think
you know one would think uhcommodities and spices would
would be such a constant themethroughout the book, but it is.
SPEAKER_00 (03:39):
Aaron Ross Powell Yes.
I like the history ofcommodities, which in in some
ways, this will be familiar tomy history colleagues.
In some ways, commodity historyhas become the new economic
history.
You know, commodities uh aregreat for telling a story.
You know, where do they comefrom?
How are they produced?
How are they shipped?
Who consumes them?
And from pepper and spices andcoffee and sugar in those
(04:02):
earlier periods through toGerman Volkswagens and washing
machines and Falker socks in themodern period, commodities tell
tell a story.
So that's one of the themes I Iknow you've you've you've read
the book, one of the themes thatsort of runs it's a running
theme really through the book,uh the movement of goods,
commodities, as well as themovement of of people, emigres
(04:25):
and exiles, and the people I'vementioned, the soldiers, the
merchants, and so on.
SPEAKER_01 (04:30):
Aaron Ross Powell Every country has its eras.
What what are the four or fivemajor eras of 500 years of
German history?
SPEAKER_00 (04:38):
Aaron Ross Powell That's a very interesting
question, trying to define theperiods for German history.
It's more difficult, I think,than it is for other countries
because there is no Germannation state until later in the
19th century, although there areproto-forms of this.
I would say, I mean, I dividethe book really into four
(04:59):
periods.
Um this early period wherewithin the Holy Roman Empire
there are many, many differentstates, many of them sort of
micro-states.
Germans are playing a role inthe world, but there is no
overarching German entity, noGerman flag.
So that's that's really thefirst part of the book.
It's the very important role ofGermans within a modernizing
(05:22):
world.
And think of think of theReformation and think of the
printing press, the two thingsthat are made in Germany.
Then I think there's atransition period of the late
18th and 19th century.
Germany becomes identified aboveall as as the land of of writers
and and thinkers.
And that's there's a sort ofnimbus of of authority that
(05:43):
attaches to German culture,which lasts right through the
nineteenth century and into thetwentieth.
Then the the nineteenth century,the age of nationalism, and I
think nineteen fourteen.
I I'm a firm believer thatnineteen fourteen, the World War
I, is uh an absolute break ofcesura.
And that raises questions thatwe probably won't go into about
(06:06):
continuities.
I mean I think sort of the worldstarts over in uh for for
Germans in in 1914.
So uh that the the twentiethcentury broken by World War II
and the new beginnings after1945 is is the is another
chapter.
Because you will be asking melater, I think, about uh what
happens in the end of thetwentieth century and what's
(06:29):
happening today.
But that's that's how I dividethe the book.
SPEAKER_01 (06:32):
Aaron Ross Powell And 1914 because just because of
the war or because of theconsequences of the war?
SPEAKER_00 (06:40):
Both.
I think until the war there isstill uh huge admiration for
Germany, for its industry andits what are then the new
industries, for its education,for its universities, all those
American and British studentswho go to German universities to
do PhDs.
Admiration for its bureaucracy,its science, and for its
(07:00):
culture, for its for its music.
I mean, uh in the book I have, Ithink, the very touching story
of Emily Bronte sitting in thiscramped parsonage in the
Yorkshire Dales, learning Germanso that she could read the
literature of this of thisculture in in the original
language.
That lingers through to 1914,and I think 1914 damages that
(07:24):
reputation not terminally, butit it it really it really
damages it severely.
And then the consequences of thewar, Versailles Treaty, the
resentment in Germany, and thisopening the door to to the
demagogue, to Hitler and theNazis, that I think it is
something new.
I mean, historians in Germanyargue a lot about the degree to
(07:45):
which there are forerunners ofthe National Socialists.
And there are certainly examplesof demagogues and of
anti-Semitism and of populistmovements before 1914.
But it's the war and theconsequences which really create
the preconditions, along withand the depression, the
preconditions for for the Nazis.
SPEAKER_01 (08:03):
Aaron Ross Powell, I mean everybody thinks that they
know the history of of the 30sand then uh the Second World
War, the Holocaust, etc.
In the course of doing thisbook, what did you learn that
made you think differently aboutthe rise of the Nazis, the
Holocaust, and the war?
SPEAKER_00 (08:21):
Aaron Ross Powell I don't want to claim too much
originality for the for thebook.
And I I think the book in manyways it highlights and
synthesizes what we're coming tosee as the, if you want, the
global setting for NationalSocialism, both its origins and
its practice.
And see, above all, it's themost notorious instance, the
(08:41):
Holocaust.
I mean, when it comes toorigins, it's it's significant
that that Hitler admired ChiangKai shek, he admired Atatürk, he
admired Henry Ford and otherAmerican racists and
anti-Semites.
There is a global background tohis his thinking, and National
Socialism is one of a a numberof fascist movements.
(09:04):
I mean Hitler's initially agreat admirer of Mussolini and
very much a kind of juniorpartner, if you want, in the
international fascist movement.
It's only after the middle ofthe 90s that Hitler becomes
indisputably Europe's leadingfascist rather than Mussolini.
And the brown shirts sitalongside the various green
shirts, grey shirts, blue shirtsof fascist movements all the way
(09:27):
across Europe.
So that's part of it.
But you mentioned the Holocaust,which of course is the great
testing ground now for thinkingabout National Socialism.
I would actually say beyondthat, that whereas once the
French Revolution was the placewhere historians tried out ideas
for how we explain the modernworld, the Holocaust in some
(09:50):
ways has now taken thatposition.
What I argue, as I say, this isI didn't come up with this on my
own.
What I think is now broadlyaccepted is that although the
Holocaust was a German directedenterprise, we cannot see it in
its full scope withoutrecognizing how it couldn't have
taken place without non-Germanhelpers who guarded the camps,
(10:14):
who served as local policeforces and militias, who rounded
up Jews and put them ontodeportation trains, and foreign
insurance companies which helpedto loot Jewish property and and
so on.
This is not in any way to weakenor undermine arguments about the
the the German nature of thisenterprise, but simply to spread
(10:35):
spread the responsibility wider,and I think that's I think
that's very much in line withthe the way that modern
scholarship is is going, bothwithin Germany to emphasize the
role of people who were not justNazis and SS people, but
ordinary Germans, butinternationally to recognize the
role of the many, manyauxiliaries, non-Germans, who
(10:55):
were essential to this process.
There were very few Germans inthe death camps, for example.
Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
SPEAKER_01 (11:00):
I was stunned to read that Hitler was a junior
partner to Ms.
Mussolini, that he was you know,that Mussolini was the the
larger fascist figure and theand that uh Hitler was the
junior partner up until, as yousay, the what the transition
that took place.
What what changed that madeHitler the senior figure and
(11:22):
Mussolini eventually a minorfigure?
SPEAKER_00 (11:25):
Yeah.
That's that's very that's veryhard to answer.
I mean I I think the partly it'sthe the sheer kind of energy and
speed with which the Nazis uhimplemented their policies after
after 1933 and the the hugepropaganda effort that went into
things like the the Autobahn andthen into the uh hosting the the
(11:48):
the Olympics, of course, in in1936.
I think what accompanied thischanging roles of of the junior
partner and the senior partneris also the resonance that Nazi
racial theory and the Nuremberglaws played with fascist parties
elsewhere.
I mean the British Union ofFascists, to take an example.
In the early 1930s, they werestill emphasizing Italian
(12:12):
fascist slogans of corporatismand so on.
They really start to mimic andecho Nazi racial language
increasingly from say around1935.
I mean, I'm not sure that I havea uh straightforward answer to
that, but I w I would certainlysay that the sort of the energy
dynamism that the Nazis projectinternationally is is an
(12:34):
important part of that.
SPEAKER_01 (12:35):
Aaron Ross Powell I was fascinated as well by a a
nation now decimated by WorldWar II, uh surrender to the
Allies, and you know what therethey are, then now been divided
into East Germany and WestGermany.
And how did it rebuild?
How did it uh come out ofdevastation?
I mean, there's no other wordfor it, in such a short period
(12:57):
of time, relatively speaking.
SPEAKER_00 (12:58):
Yeah.
And it's uh big question, andit's it rebuilds in two very
different ways, both of themsuccessful within the blocks
that they belong to.
The answer is that each wasembedded firmly within its
within its block.
It's not if we take the FederalRepublic, the the Germany that I
(13:19):
I identify obviously morestrongly with, the one where I
spent time I first went there inthe uh in the 1960s as part of a
a school exchange.
And the great turning pointinitially was Adenau deciding
that he would identify with theWest.
I mean there have been a numberof turning points, and that was
the key one in in the 50s, thatGermany would no longer go its
(13:41):
own way, but would identifyitself with the West, with
Atlanticism.
And I think subsequent turningpoints, Philibrandt in the
1970s, with the decision to gofor rapprochement, the
Ostpolitik with Russia isanother turning point, just as
you will come to this later, Ithink, but the tremendous
importance in the early years ofHelmut Kohl's decision that
(14:03):
unified Germany would embeditself within uh European within
the developing European Union inorder to to disarm fears about
what Germany could become.
But going back to Adna, thatthat lays the foundations for
for the emergence of a uh ofeconomic dynamism, the so-called
(14:24):
Wirtschaftswunder, the economicmiracle.
The current common sense ofhistorians is that we shouldn't
overemphasize the degree towhich West Germans were getting
wealthy in the nineteen fifties.
Much of it was coming really inthe sixties and even the
seventies.
But compared with, as you say,the utter devastation and the
the black market, the well, thethe ruined the ruined landscapes
(14:45):
that are familiar to anyonewho's seen photographs of that
period.
It's a remarkable turnaround.
And without going into too muchdetail, I mean the the East
Germans, in retrospect, we cansee all the failings of the
system.
But not only sympatheticsocialist commentators, but
institutions like the World Bankconsistently saw the GDR East
Germany as a relativelysuccessful socialist economy
(15:09):
relative to to other parts ofthe Soviet Soviet bloc.
But I don't want to go on toolong, so let me hand it back to
you.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01 (15:17):
Well, I wanted to get to the 1990 and German
reunification.
Helmut Cole, I think, goes to orspeaks with President, then
President George H.
W.
Bush and George H.
W.
Bush and Secretary Baker,Secretary James Baker, are
initially, I think, a littlewary of reunification, uh, but
(15:42):
eventually Bush and Cole, Idon't know quite how you
describe this, but they decideto go ahead, if you will, Cole
being a critical figure,obviously.
Can you describe to us how thatcame about?
I I just think it's an amazingshift in European history that,
you know, you have these twostates now reunited with the
(16:02):
collapse of the Soviet Unionshortly thereafter.
You know, the Germany is nolonger a neighbor, it's
buffered, and therefore thethreat of Russia diminishes, at
least in theory.
SPEAKER_00 (16:13):
Trevor Burrus, Jr.: One of the things I'd I'd I'd
like to start by saying is thatwe always talk about lessons
from history, learning from thepast.
But one of the things thatprofessional historians can take
pleasure in at these greatturning points is to look at the
light which the present throwson the past.
(16:34):
And I I remember that year,1989-90, very, very well.
I was in Stanford as a visitingprofessor, and we were having
regular lunchtime gatherings,and we had no idea what would
happen.
Will East Germany disappear?
Will it will there be some kindof reformed socialist state of
the kind that the reformers,figures like Christopholf, would
(16:54):
have preferred, or will itsimply disappear?
We didn't know.
History was, as it always is,open-ended until events actually
happen.
And I actually felt that Ilearned a lot about Bismarck and
unification of the 1860s and the1871 settlement from 1989-90.
And I think I'm not not alone inthat.
(17:15):
No, I mean, you're you're rightto emphasize the turning point,
and if George H.
W.
Bush had some nervousness, itwas as nothing compared with the
nervousness of of Mr.
Gorbachev, but also of theFrench, and not least of of
Margaret Thatcher, who hadprofound misgivings.
I think she gave up heropposition.
(17:36):
I think Mr.
Gorbachev gave up his oppositionearlier than uh earlier than
than Margaret Thatcher did.
I think a combination of reasonsexplains how it ended as it did.
Partly just the lack of statecapacity in East Germany, made
it hard to imagine that thatstate could continue to exist as
an independent entity, and thepeople of East Germany
(17:58):
increasingly, and for economicreasons, wanted to uh wanted to
join the West.
And as for the internationaldimension, Timothy Garten Ash,
who was one of the great expertson on this, talks that's
slightly I won't say that he's acynic, but he does talk about
the way in which the FederalRepublic, in a sense, bought off
(18:20):
the Soviets with very generousuh economic aid packages and so
on.
I think a combination of a charmoffensive of economic of ec
economic incentives and thesheer implosion of the East
German state.
At a certain point in the springof 1990, it became clear that
there would there would bereunification, and then the only
(18:43):
question was on what terms?
And I think essentially theterms on which it took place
were very much those of the oldFederal the old Federal
Republic, so that it was anabsorption of East Germany on
the terms set by by WestGermany.
SPEAKER_01 (18:58):
So Germany is reunified, the threat, if you
will, of the of the Soviet Unionslash Russia diminishes with the
collapse of the Soviet Union,the end of history has arrived,
and this sort of, I don't knowwhat you would call a Davos
consensus emerges.
And the German model is U.S.
(19:20):
for security, Russia for energy,China for markets.
How much of that is is accurate?
And uh what what impact did ithave on policy making amongst
the policy makers in Germany?
SPEAKER_00 (19:32):
No, I mean that's uh there are a number of celebrated
quips about Germany.
One is Henry Kissinger'sGermany's too big for Europe,
too small for the world.
Interesting comment.
And then the one that you citeuh is I think Constanza Steltson
Müller, this commentator, saidthat Germany outsourced its
defense to the US, its uh itsenergy needs to Russia, and it
(19:54):
its uh economic export needs toto China.
I think it's an accuratedescription, um, was it it
describes what would laterbecome problematic once the
perhaps the complacency of thenineteen nineties about the end
of history and globalization wasbound to lead to some kind of
(20:14):
convergence and the Chinese andRussians would eventually get
with the program.
A complacency in Germany that ofcourse was was shared in the in
the Western in the Westernworld.
You know, Monday morningquarterbacking is you know, is
is easy.
I mean it it worked.
It worked as a model, and Iwould say that in the German
(20:35):
case there is a pattern in thehistory of the Federal Republic,
the old Federal Republic, and itcontinues after 1990, this
desire to to be friends witheveryone, to be part of every
multinational agreement, to bein NATO, to be in Europe, to
have good relations though withthe Russians too, have good
relations with the Chinese.
This desire to I mean it's it'spart of a I think a quite
(20:59):
conscious throwing off of a of abad, dark history.
And so the reunified FederalRepublic fits perfectly.
It's a kind of poster child forthat globalizing complacency of
the nineteen nineties and theearly twenty-first century until
suddenly it's upended by a wholeseries of crises.
(21:20):
The recession, the the RussianEmpire increasingly showing its
fangs, COVID.
Um I mean a whole series of ofshocks to the system, which we
may go into in detail, but yeah.
It is I would say that Germanynot only shares, but is a
particularly powerfulillustration of that, of of the
complacency of that era.
(21:41):
And the description of of thedependency on those those three
countries is absolutelyaccurate, I think.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01 (21:47):
My friend Walter Mead wrote a famous essay when
she described the blue model asbig government, big comp big
corporations, and big laborworking together to you know
improve living.
standards and you know, progrmake progress on every front,
and that it worked for a longtime and then it didn't.
It it broke down.
(22:08):
The German blue model seemssimilar.
What when did you think thatsort of began to break down?
I'm I'm curious as to you know,now it seems like the Germany's
economy has no sort of venturecapital dynamism, if you will,
despite having enormousintellectual capital, and I
(22:29):
think a lot of people think thatthe reason for that is
Volkswagens of the world, BSBASF, etc., in concert with the
labor unions and in concert withthe political system, have sort
of gamed the system to theiradvantage at the cost of uh, you
know, innovation, dynamism,whatever you want to call it.
(22:49):
Is that is that roughly true?
SPEAKER_00 (22:51):
Or I have mixed feelings about this.
I mean I read figures likeWolfgang Gunshau for whom I have
great respect, and others likehim who emphasize precisely
this.
And there's there's clearly sometruth in it.
Germany privileged the olderindustries in which they were
very good.
I mean the the exports to China,you know, f forty percent of
(23:13):
Volkswagen's uh income came fromexports to to China.
They were very good atpharmaceuticals and automobiles
and equipment.
I mean Siemens is still aglobally significant country,
one of the largest in the worldit builds, you know, it builds
wind turbines, it builds subwaysin Riyadh, it builds it builds
(23:34):
the get uh CAT scanned on in inhospitals.
Yes, Germany got left behindwhen it came to biotech, AI, and
that's partly a Europeanphenomenon.
One of the explanations for it,I think, is the absence, if you
compare the EU with either theUS or China, they have single
capital markets.
(23:54):
The EU has eight differentcurrencies, one of which is the
Euro, and then you've got, youknow, you've got the the British
pound and the Swiss franc andthe Norwegian krona on top of
that.
It's been regarded as plausiblethe arguments that it's simply
impossible for any bank inEurope, whether it's the largest
bank in Germany or France orBritain, to fund a Meta or a
(24:17):
Nvidia or Apple on the scale inwhich they can be or or indeed
the their Chinese equivalents,ten cents and so on.
Impossible to fund them to thesame degree.
So partly this is a matter ofthe absence of a single capital
market in Europe.
But they have been left behindand there are certain arguments
to be made about bureaucraticbloat.
(24:38):
I was in Germany we just gotback actually just on Sunday
night and in Berlin there are somany construction sites and
talking to a friend there, umthe friend was saying rather
caustically that the reason forso many construction sites is
that you you have to acquire apermit to construct a
construction site but then youhave to acquire another permit
(24:59):
to construct a construction onyour construction site at one
institution I won't I won't nameit, but a cultural institution
in the German capital wheretheir main building is closed
for renovations.
They're they've been told thatit should be ready for them to
reoccupy in 2031.
But they think that this may bea bit optimistic because it's
(25:21):
only five years away.
So even as a good old socialdemocrat as I am I recognize the
problems of bureaucraticrigidity.
They are of course not unique toGermany some of what people
argue about Germany would befamiliar to readers of you know
Ezra Klein and the abundance youknow getting stuff built it's so
hard.
And I I would add a particularGerman problem which is this
(25:44):
austerity obsession and I thinkit goes back to the inflation
period this fear of funny money.
And as you know I mean of of allthe G7 countries Germany has by
far the healthiest publicfinances.
I mean if you compare it withthe US or Britain or France,
they're all basket cases reallyby comparison with Germany
(26:05):
Germany should have used itsmoney to spend it wisely on RD,
on infrastructure, getting thoserailways and bridges repaired,
especially the railways it's nowa standing joke in Germany the
Deutsche Bahn, everybody hasstories about cancellations and
delays.
The Germans joke about it.
So they should have spent themoney they should have boosted
(26:26):
domestic demand more rather thanjust being the export behemoth.
So the critique the critique ofthe sort of the the sclerosis is
accurate but let me just end bybriefly stating the case against
Germany is still the world'snumber three economy.
It's the world's number twoeconomy if you measure it by GDP
(26:47):
per capita after the US It hasglobal brands which everybody
recognizes it's reinventeditself in the past I think it
can do so again.
Germany is, I think, takingsteps now to free itself when
it's freed itself from theRussian energy source, retooled
its ports to bring in liquefiednatural gas.
(27:07):
And I think both Scholz and nowMerz have been trying very hard
to connect with other tradepartners with India with the
Saudis and the Emirates withLatin Americans.
So all is not lost.
I mean I I think it's possibleto be too pessimistic about the
German economy on the politicsof the Blue State you know
(27:28):
Winston Churchill once saidfamously democracy is the worst
system of government everinvented except for all the
others and I I would say socialdemocracy is the worst system
ever invented except for all theothers.
I'm a a fairly unrepentantsocial democrat.
You'd have to say that socialdemocracy is not thriving at the
moment but that's that's notjust a German story and perhaps
(27:51):
perhaps you'll want to come onto the the the politics before
we end this.
SPEAKER_01 (27:56):
Well I did want to ask I mean Anula Merkel is a
huge figure in the post uh inthe 21st century.
What accounts for her rise, Iguess, and then what accounts
for her extraordinary longevitypolitically and and then one
should say something about thelegacy because there is a there
(28:17):
is now a sort of nostalgia wave,I think, for the Merkel years.
SPEAKER_00 (28:22):
I mean she it's interesting isn't it the uh the
the fact that these powerfulfemale leaders have so often
risen in parties of the centerright rather than parties of the
center left and so she fits shefits that pattern.
She uh she her reputation wasabove all that of a safe pair of
(28:43):
hands.
Merz was the more right wingrival and was seen, ironically
perhaps from today'sperspective, Merz was seen as a
more difficult, divisive,prickly figure, more
ideological, more right wing.
So she was a technocrat andextraordinarily talented at
marginalizing critics, acquiredthis reputation as a safe pair
(29:05):
of hands, and you can probablyhear the bot coming I mean I I
knew you'd ask me about Merkeland it occurred to me a str a
strange analogy was with Ottovon Bismarck that after he'd
gone, people said, oh why don'twe have leaders like that
anymore?
He was such a powerfuldominating figure and the people
who came after were so muchlesser.
But it's I think fairly apparentto historians now that for all
(29:28):
Bismarck's genuine qualities,many of the problems of his succ
that his successors faced wereproblems that arose because of
him and because of his twentyyears in power.
And I think I do I I don't knowthat anybody else has made this
analogy, but it is certainly thecase that people are now
pointing to various problemsthat Merkel left behind.
(29:50):
I mean there's two veryimpulsive decisions that she
made it's strange this this sortof Mutti, the safe pair of hands
twice behaved very impulsivelyonce after Fukushima that
Germany will instantly get outof nuclear power, which in
retrospect was a a foolishdecision, very foolish, and I
think the environmentalistswould accept that but the other
(30:13):
m this is more controversial,the other is the complacency
with which in August 2015, whenGermany proceeded to admit one
million Syrians, a shuffled uswe we can do this, criticized
even at the time actually bysome social democrats as going
too far too quickly, throwingoff the Dublin protocols and and
(30:34):
opening the door to AFD to theto the far right.
But I mean the larger pointbefore I go on too long but the
larger point I think is peoplenow talk about a wasted golden
decade.
After the Eurozone crisis, afterthe financial crisis, so let's
say from 2009 for the next tenyears, Merkel's in power and
things don't change.
(30:55):
That's when Germany should havebeen trying to make more of a
transition towards EVs, AI andso on.
So wasted opportunities.
So she is a great powerfulfigure, but I would just add one
other thing as someone who likedthe old Federal Republic, which
had two major ChristianDemocratic leaders who were from
the Rhineland, Adenauer andKohl, they were from the
(31:18):
Rhineland and I think had a kindof sense for Europe and
especially for the Frenchconnection but not only that
Merkel didn't have coming as shedid from the former East
Germany.
So fans of Angela Merkel,including the 35,000 people who
bought her autobiography on thefirst day will probably not like
what I've just said but I I havecriticisms.
(31:40):
Yeah.
And there are huge lines for herto sign the book.
Yeah it's the Merkel nostalgiayou know the nostalgia for the
for a an imagined better Germanyand of course it it was in many
ways a less fraught and crisisridden Germany.
SPEAKER_01 (31:56):
So as we were going back and forth you said to me
that you thought I would askabout Ukraine and of course I
was going to ask about Ukrainebut the Ukraine that I was
thinking about was Crimea in2014?
And th that was seems to me ahinge point in modern German
(32:18):
history.
Am I right about that or is itnot is it not that important?
SPEAKER_00 (32:22):
I think it was, although it's I think because of
the sheer overwhelming presenceof of the war since February
2022, some of the earlier stagesof Soviet attacks on Georgia and
then the the seizure of Crimeaand what turned out to be the
fruitless efforts of Germany andFrance with you know with the
(32:43):
Normandy Accords and the MinskAgreements and so on broken by
Putin, they tend to beoverlooked.
I think you're right that um theWest should and here again
Merkel is important, the Westshould have been more critical
of the Russian threat earlier.
But you can always understandwhy in the German case there is
(33:03):
a reluctance to be critical ofRussia as of the Soviet Union
before the tradition ofOstpolitik um the thing that I
mentioned earlier the mostobsessive German desire to be
friends with everyone East andWest.
So I I have some sympathy forMerkel's unwillingness to take a
bolder stance.
(33:24):
But I think you're right thatthat shouldn't be forgotten,
even as we recognize how Germanyhas stepped up and been a very
important leader and a leaderwithin Europe when it comes to
supporting Ukraine sinceFebruary 2022.
SPEAKER_01 (33:41):
I think the German support for Ukraine in the
current conflict, which has nowamazingly gone longer than World
War I was astonished by thatlittle fact.
It's been remarkable given thepolitical pressure from the
right as what what accounts forit?
Why has the the leadership beenso I mean not obviously not a
(34:04):
hundred percent, but more thananyone else in Europe, Germany
has stepped up.
What what are the politicaldynamics of that aren't they or
I'm not quite sure I have thequestion right here, but given
the rise of the right inGermany, it would seem that the
leadership would be morecircumspect or flexible or
whatever the right word is aboutsupporting Ukraine, but the the
(34:25):
German government has beenalmost uniformly strong.
SPEAKER_00 (34:28):
Aaron Ross Powell Yes.
It's it's it's interesting thatthat you do frame it that way.
It it it isn't often framed thatway and it really makes you
think I mean one one answerwould be political will, which
we shouldn't underestimate thatGerman leaders have have not
taken the path of leastresistance is a matter of
political will and all creditthere.
(34:49):
But I you you could in facttrace this back to the way in
which since reunification Germanleaders have bit by bit nailed
their colours to the mast whenit came to supporting
humanitarian interventions,which of course for a long time
Germans uh refused to refuse totake part in any kind of out of
(35:11):
area operations and there waseven a question of whether the
Supreme Court in Germany wouldpermit them.
And that's all been resolved andI mean one of the things I write
about in the in the book is howfrom I mean from the time of
Kosovo onwards, step by step,Germans have come to assert the
importance of internationalinitiatives to support
(35:34):
essentially democraticdemocratic sovereign states
against aggressors.
And that includes Kosovo itincludes other examples, for
example Afghanistan.
So it's there's an ideologicalbackground which is a background
of bit by bit stepping away fromthe the desire never to engage
(35:56):
in ways that could be criticizedwith the outer world.
And it's also a question ofpolitical will.
SPEAKER_01 (36:01):
Aaron Ross Powell I want to follow up but in a
different sort of way which isthe AFD which is rising in the
polls at least has taken apro-Russian view of the war.
I think that's fair to say wellmy question is is is that viable
politically can you bepro-Russian in the current
(36:22):
German environment given a warthat's gone on longer than World
War I, clearly a war of choiceon Putin's part and given the
massive unpopularity ofPresident Trump pre and now post
the Iran war, if if indeed thewar Iran war is over, which I
don't suspect it is, but i is isthere a sort of ceiling for the
(36:45):
AFD or is there room for themstill to grow?
I hope there's a ceiling.
SPEAKER_00 (36:49):
It hasn't been a straightforward linear rise.
There's a volatility to the votefor AFD as I think there is to
equivalent movements.
I mean as you know this is AFDis the German version of what's
happening in in many other partsof Europe.
I mean in in the Netherlands, inFrance and in the country that I
was born in with reform,restore, reclaim all these far
(37:13):
right movements which havealmost eclipsed the Conservative
party I think I believe, butmaybe I want to believe that AFD
has reached its natural sceningnow.
What I am heartened by is theway that the firewall has held
of the the other parties.
And I mean there's a strikingexample in Turingia one of the
(37:35):
former East German lender whereAFD is stronger as you know than
in the West.
There's a coalition there of notonly of the Christian Democrats
and the Social Democrats butalso of this breakaway left-wing
group, the Sahra WagenknechtAlliance.
Those three have half of exactlyhalf of the seats and they are
(37:55):
in coalition government which istolerated by De Linca, the far
left party.
All of this to um to marginalizeAFD which is the largest single
party.
There have been some ChristianDemocrats who've talked about
admitting AFD to government onthe grounds that they will give
them some power and they willbehave more moderately.
I think that the model there isis Maloney in Italy.
(38:17):
A dangerous argument I thinkbecause AFD is considerably to
the right of of Maloney.
I mean it wants to leave NATOand the EU and is um a racist
party.
These Christian Democrats who'vetalked about bringing into power
are very much very much aminority voice and I expect that
to remain the case.
(38:37):
I mean it's a I'm notcomplacent, but I I mean it it
is a it's a dangerous party andit it has to be met with
political arguments and not II've had various conversations
in the last two weeks in Germanywith Germans who've who would
like it to be banned.
I think that's terriblepolitics.
You can't ban can't ban a partythat millions and millions of
(38:59):
Germans vote for out offrustration and anger.
You have to you have to meetthem with arguments and there
are various fronts on which Ithink they should do that.
So I don't know if they'vereached the peak.
SPEAKER_01 (39:12):
I I hope they have I was interested to read in the FT
I don't know when you know lastweek or so that Der Linke, is
that right the left wing party?
Der Linke has attracted a largefollowing among the youth of
Germany which I guess is definedas eighteen to twenty five or
eighteen to twenty nine year oldpeople.
(39:34):
Is that is that true?
SPEAKER_00 (39:35):
Yes.
I mean I think wh ha this againis the German variant of
something that's uh a l a alarger phenomenon in in the
West.
I think of the way that theGreen Party in in Britain, which
is basically now it's like DeLinka.
I mean it's a it's not anecological party anymore.
It's a party of party of theleft-wing labor exiles and of
(39:58):
the the trans activists and uhand of Muslims in fact.
Or you think of the DemocraticSocialists of America and the uh
success of of some charismaticleft-wing figures.
Uh and De Linka has attracted,yes, youth who are clearly
dissatisfied with boring oldsocial democracy.
And I understand that.
I mean it one of my one of myhobby horses is that once upon a
(40:21):
time in the 1970s all thecharismatic politicians were
social democrats.
Willy Brandt, Olaf Palmer, GoffWhitlam in Australia, all your
Australian listeners willinstantly nod, you know, the
most transformational figure.
And now we have Keir Starmer andOlaf Schultz.
These are not charismaticfigures and the and the Social
Democrats seem to have run outof ideas and the youth but some
(40:44):
of the youth are going to AFD aswell.
Let's not forget that.
So that's that has itscounterpart in other countries
as well, doesn't it?
Including including this oneyouth going to the more left
side of the Democratic Party butalso some youth attracted to
MAGA.
SPEAKER_01 (41:00):
Yes yeah no it's interest i the politics here are
interesting because Gallup did apoll of public figures do you
have a favorable or unfavorableview of X, Y, and Z.
And the two public figures thatwere had net positive favorable
ratings were Pope Leo, nosurprise there, and the other
(41:22):
was Bernie Sanders.
Everybody else was negative.
So it's this it's you knowthere's there's something going
on on the left and Sandersobviously is himself and he's
run twice for president and hasa following and is seen as I
hate the word but authentic.
Yes but but the a man who iselected to the U.S.
(41:47):
Senate from Vermont and runs onthe independence socialist line
is not something you wouldexpect in the U.S.
I wanted to ask you one lastquestion.
One of my hobby horses I guessyou would say is that the Trump
administration's attacks onexpertise on academic
(42:09):
institutions, on science broadlyspeaking has made a lot of PhD
candidates, a lot of PhDs, a lotof faculty members, a lot of the
smartest people in the worldbasically, think about
relocating, leaving the U.S.
and going to work in England orFrance or Germany or Canada or
(42:31):
whatever.
Is is is that is Germanyreaching out to attract the I
hate the word reaching out.
I'm sorry I used it.
Is German is Germany putting outa welcome mat?
There you go welcome mat to thebrainiacs of America to get them
to come?
SPEAKER_00 (42:47):
Would will you permit me a quick comment about
Maine?
I have to believe that there issomething in between 78-year-old
Janet Mills and Graham Platner.
There's something different inboth age and politics and that
to me is is a problem.
But I would say that wouldn't Ias an old as an old social
democrat who's looking for newleadership in people in their
40s and 50s.
(43:08):
But the welcome mat is certainlythere.
I mean one of the most wonderfulironies of history to me is the
significant number of youngliberal Jews who are relocating
from Israel to Germany.
Talk about talk about ironies ofironies of history.
I'm not aware that there is athat there's active attempt to
reach out.
(43:28):
I dislike the phrases you do.
You know this Anhold Ipsosnation brands survey I mean it's
a horrible idea too that nationsare brands.
But Germany scores very veryhighly on those as you know
first or second place.
There are many things that umthat attract people to this to
this cultural nation, thiswealthy nation.
(43:49):
I think German culturaldiplomacy is very effective.
It's uh you know there are 150Goethe institutes around the
world.
There is a certain magnetism andit's most obvious when it comes
To cultural figures likemusicians and conductors.
I think three-quarters of allthe orchestras in Germany are
conducted, you know, the musicdirectors are non-Germans and
(44:11):
non-Austrians.
I think that along with Canada,Australia, Britain, and other
places, uh, Germany will capturesome of that, some of that
talent that emigrates.
But some of the neoliberalcritics of Germany argue that
Germany itself is losing itsmore creative figures because of
this rigid bureaucracy.
(44:31):
So maybe swings and roundabouts.
SPEAKER_01 (44:33):
One of the themes of of your book is the uh is the
importance placed on and onintellectual capital, or another
horrible phrase, butuniversities, research, uh
intelligence generally bybrought together throughout the
nation's history or when itunified, obviously.
(44:55):
And and since it's been it'sbeen a real home to intellectual
activity, scientific research,etc.
SPEAKER_00 (45:04):
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (45:05):
That continues, right?
I mean that that's that's notstopped.
SPEAKER_00 (45:08):
Aaron Ross Powell Not at all.
And you were talking about youthas a group, and I not long ago
read an interesting survey, aninternational survey of 15 to 24
year olds and whether they wereoptimistic about the future.
And not surprisingly, I think,many of that generation in the
US and France and Britain werepessimistic.
(45:31):
German youth, 15 to 24 yearolds, were relatively
optimistic.
They compared more withMoroccans and Brazilians than
they did with French andAmericans Americans of the same
generation.
And one of the reasons for thatwas that they really believed
that education uh would permitsocial mobility, that they could
have lives at least as good astheir parents' lives if they
(45:53):
worked hard and were educated.
And that was that made Germanyan outlier among the advanced
capitalist countries.
So that is very much in linewith what you're talking about,
the um the importance attachedto education, culture.
Yes.
And one of the things that Iadmire about this country as
well.
SPEAKER_01 (46:13):
So what's your next book, or is that it?
SPEAKER_00 (46:16):
Aaron Ross Powell The next book, which is nearly
finished, is a much shorterbook.
I I'm I'm done with long books.
SPEAKER_01 (46:27):
I mean for your sake, not for my For my sake,
thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (46:30):
I appreciate the amendment.
Um it's a book called Wheels ofPower, and it has three
chapters, and it's it's thefirst book I've ever written
which is focused on the NationalSocialists, and it's literally
about the use of wheels in theseizure of power and then the
regime and the Holocaust, thatis to say, the use of um
motorbikes and trucks and carsfor propaganda and violence in
(46:52):
the seizure of power.
I mean it's more than it's not ahistory of technology.
It it's it's the wheels andtheir economic and social and
cultural significance.
Then I talk about the Autobahnand the Volkswagen project, and
then, of course, the uh thedeath trains.
So it's it's wheels.
Wheels of power.
SPEAKER_01 (47:10):
That's the name of the book.
SPEAKER_00 (47:12):
Watch out for it.
Yes.
I'm not sure what the subtitleis, but that's definitely going
to be the main title.
SPEAKER_01 (47:17):
When is it going to be published?
SPEAKER_00 (47:19):
It's the due date for the manuscript is next
spring, and I will probablyshock my agent and the publisher
by delivering ahead of time.
So I would think at the earliestnext fall, possibly even the
spring of 2028.
But uh say it is I've I'm nearlyfinished with a good first draft
now.
It'll be a 70,000-word book,much shorter than Germany in the
(47:41):
world.
SPEAKER_01 (47:43):
All right.
I think we've taken uh more thanenough of your time.
Thank you very much for doingthis.
And we would urge our readers tobuy Mr.
Blackborne's book, which isentitled Germany in the World of
Global History, 1500 to 2000.
It's enormously impressive.
It was described actually byTimothy Gartnash, is that right?
(48:05):
Gartenash as magnificent, whichI thought was accurate.
Thank you very much for doingthis.
SPEAKER_00 (48:10):
Well, thank you very much for having me on your
podcast.
I've enjoyed it very muchindeed.
Thank you.
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