Voldiers who organized and agitated against
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2025 7:56 am
In fact it can be said that the common soldier on all sides in the Second World War thought he was dying for his country when in fact he was dying for an imperial idea of which in most cases he had little knowledge and less understanding. The short-lived Third Reich was unique in its conscious plan to use the German nation as launching pad for a racially organized empire. But appeals to blood and soil are inward looking, imperial conquest is outward looking.
The empire looks to the sky, the nation to the earth. Imperialism is a flight from the homeland, it is a repudiation of true nationalism. Fascist agitators tend to fall between two stools, at once claiming universal values and at the same time "national rights" unique to their own nation, expressing a lack of interest in what happens beyond their borders and yet reverting to a nostalgia for a glorious imperial past which could only have come to pass through interest in the wide world.
Fascist movements are inwardly torn between their job function email list imperialist dreams and their practical attempts to create a national party promising what the masses have always wanted: order, peace, understanding with one's neighbours. This is why insisting on Germany's guilt in starting the war was so important to the victors of 1918 and 1945. To be responsible for a war is something the masses can only forgive if you win (in which case the official history will in any case deny that you caused it). The propaganda in 1918 was unsuccessful in Germany itself.
Largely because of the large numbers of former German s it. In 1945, unlike the situation in 1918, the Allies were in Germany and the greater part of the defeated enemy in their hands. This enabled them to keep soldiers in camps for years without fuss, and the danger of soldiers coming home and loudly denying their leaders' exclusive responsibility was avoided. An inward looking provincial patriotism was encouraged in all three post-war German statelets, to erase the memory of empire.
The empire looks to the sky, the nation to the earth. Imperialism is a flight from the homeland, it is a repudiation of true nationalism. Fascist agitators tend to fall between two stools, at once claiming universal values and at the same time "national rights" unique to their own nation, expressing a lack of interest in what happens beyond their borders and yet reverting to a nostalgia for a glorious imperial past which could only have come to pass through interest in the wide world.
Fascist movements are inwardly torn between their job function email list imperialist dreams and their practical attempts to create a national party promising what the masses have always wanted: order, peace, understanding with one's neighbours. This is why insisting on Germany's guilt in starting the war was so important to the victors of 1918 and 1945. To be responsible for a war is something the masses can only forgive if you win (in which case the official history will in any case deny that you caused it). The propaganda in 1918 was unsuccessful in Germany itself.
Largely because of the large numbers of former German s it. In 1945, unlike the situation in 1918, the Allies were in Germany and the greater part of the defeated enemy in their hands. This enabled them to keep soldiers in camps for years without fuss, and the danger of soldiers coming home and loudly denying their leaders' exclusive responsibility was avoided. An inward looking provincial patriotism was encouraged in all three post-war German statelets, to erase the memory of empire.