Fun thing about the con man who posed as the officer in Köpenick is that he was quickly pardoned by the Kaiser himself, who apparently laughed at this entire story. He was actually happy to see that obedience was so thoroughly engrained in the army that nobody dared to question the uniform at all.
@@secretname4190 It's even more interesting: Contrary to popular belief, I am pretty sure the Imperial German Officers were by and large not just throwing men into the meat grinder easier than their enemies - possibly even less than the allies did - that concept was a Nazi thing. Even Falkenhayn intended the famous meat grinder of Verdun not to get rid of his own men, but of the French (admittedly willing to sacrifice his own in large numbers). They also were notoriously lenient with desertion and other "misdeeds" by soldiers - again, the Nazis rolled back on that later. They valued obedience very much, don't get me wrong, but they also were comparably careful with their resources, knowing that they were fighting a two-front war.
@@LarthV True. It's a classic propaganda move to say your opponent doesn't care about human life and just runs into machine gun fire. The Nazis didn't do it either. I don't know about desertion and such, but it is well-known in my country (Belgium) that deserters were always shot. Even though we have all the liberal traditions one could hope for. Now that I think about it, the whole narrative of this video is really contrived.
@@secretname4190 I think the circumstances might be a bit different. Belgium was fighting for its survival. The moment the first german jackboot crossed the border-line, everyone in Europe knew that the only fate awaiting Belgium should they be defeated was occupation (and if Germany won, whatever the German diktat was). Only ~5% of the country remained free and I imagine that sort of dynamic creates a lot more of an intolerant attitude towards desertion. It makes people think you're abandoning your motherland to death or slavery to the hun. In contrast, germany did not have that kind of existential pressure till after the Kaiserschlacht in 1918.
22:00 "When you think of hundreds of thousands of men obediently marching into French machine gun fire in 1917, this obedience to authority reveals itself for just how sinister it could be" I'm sorry, but that is a terrible example. In both the German and French armies during the First World War, the punishment for refusing to go over the top was execution. The reason German soldiers marched into French machine gun fire was the same reason the French soldiers marched into German machine gun fire: if you ran at the enemy, you might make it to safety, and even if you were wounded, you still might survive. But if you refused to follow a direct order from a superior, you would be court martialed and shot, after which you would definitely die.
True. Perpetually online people like to think there's some Galaxy brained reason for human action, when in reality, it's just simple primitive emotions like fear of death or vengeful hate
However there Is a significant difference between Germans and to some extent British soldiers and French (mutinies if 1917) and Russians (revolution of 1917). German tradition of obedience was brilliantly portrait by Remarque and British was equally brilliantly laughed by Black Adder in the final series. I want to see episode of Badden-Powell role in shaping whole generations of obedient British youth who will march into machine gun fire in WW I.
In France over 200 soldiers were executed for desertion during the Great War. In Germany only about 8, allthough the law was equally strict. Not to forget, that the French were defending their country on their land, and the Germans were fighting an aggressive war on foreighn soil.
@@alexanderdrude4265 I don't think that "defending their country" was the key motivation in WW I. Even in France realities of occupation wasn't as harsh as in the WW II. That was the imperialist war and the key motivations were just that. Once again Remarque shows that brilliantly. Especially in describing enthusiasm from the beginning of the war. Number of executed soldiers shows that the chance of death penalty was relatively small and levels of fanaticism/ patriotic enthusiasm was very high on all sides through the first years of the war. Logically mutinies should be common as the perspective of being a victim of Verdun meat grinder was fairly obvious. But there weren't. Only in the very last stage of the war.
@@79marchewa Germans did a complete revolution and overthrew the entire government? Its also quite easy or convenient to skip over the part where Germany got a republic or that more than 2/3rds of all officers in the stauffenberg attempted murder were prussians (disproportional more to the wehrmacht) or that prussia was a bastion of social democracy before it got decapitated by von papen in 1932. it was more left than many south german states especially in the rhineland and major cities like hamburg & berlin. the NSDAP was never really elected there. this video is just kind of convenient, in picking out whatever fits the narrative. russia had a very disfunctional low trust society at least by his definition, and also spiraled into totalitarian chaos after the revolution. french antisemites were just as prevalent/bad in 1910 as germans and way less bad than the russians. the french also handed over their revolutionary power to an militaristic imperialistic genocidal monarch called napoleon where it took an european coalition to take him down. he just wants to fit his narrative.
The stereotype of the "Beamte" is still alive and well in todays Germany. It is one of the more desirable kinds of jobs. Being a "Beamter" is seen as secure and upper middle class. However, we Germans still love to complain about the Bureacracy and how backwards it is. The "stereotypical Beamter" sits in some kind of office doing nothing but take paper from citizens, tell them some weird and small detail is wrong, and make more documents out of it. It is mostly seen as a hassle to most Germans, myself included. My favorite story is that I had to go to a state insurance for my university application...even though I have private insurance. Why? Because the bureacracy needs me to go through the state insurance...So I had to wait for hours until some Beamter was free to take my case, even though my private insurance did have a document for university applications. Conclusion: Paper for the Paper God. Ink for the Ink Throne.
at least in my experience whenever someone asks to which administration they have to go to for whatever they need, they're relieved when they're told the people working there aren't Beamten - imho what makes Beamten so despised is that they're (practically) immune to being fired which leads to noticeably above average complacency, laziness and sloppiness especially in those whose job is sitting around all day
Worth noting that most of these office jobs are now just part of the regular Öffentlicher Dienst, the most common Beamtenberuf by far is being a teacher.
@@r.a.d.h.4260 my teachers always used to lament not getting verbeamted, but it's admittedly been some time, so maybe that's changed (or it's just because of different school systems in different federal states again)
1:53 This Proverb originates from runaway peasants who would spend exactly 1 day and 1 year in the cities when they escaped their fiefdom, after this, burocratically speaking, there were no longer bound to their liege, so 1 day and 1 year of city's air would liberate you from feudalism
@@CyberRager Notably, the liege was at liberty to go reclaim the peasant during that period, so this was less of a means to escape (if your liege wanted you back, he could go get you) but it was relevant because until you had acquired your freedom that way, you wouldn't be able to pursue citizenship and the associated privileges.
That’s the story I’ve heard as well, but that the practice even existed points to the underlying social truth: the cities had gained considerable political autonomy from the aristocracy. So I wonder if the story is more of a myth or just so story.
@@MarcosElMalo2 it makes sense in context, these citys were ultimately what secured the power of the "kaiser" so growing theyre population by decree and such expanding that power to secure his position makes sense. also your feudal lords lose a peasant so thats also a plus.
Google statutum in favorem principum 1231/32 for further information and keep in mind that all „laws“ of that time are more or less „guidelines“ as there was no one there to enforce them.
Funny thing is, Prussia becoming the "de facto" leader of a Unified Germany was far from predetermined; if the Silesian Wars hadn't gone the way they did or if the Napoleonic Wars didn't end the way they did, Germany might have looked very different.
@@alexanderdrude4265 Decentralized Germany, for Austria didn't have any use for a unified administration Germany, more so for what it had done to them, but only for better control, not because its for the better good, but securing the authority of the Emperor and that the rest of the 19th liberalist movements. Although it would be interesting to see +30 countries in nowadays Germany, and what would substitute both World Wars under such context.
The video argues that militarism and centralized bureaucracy are morally bad, but the history shows that it brings results. This militarist drive is the reason why Prussia went from a minor player to Europe's second great power. Formation of Germany wasn't guaranteed either, it could have remained a playground for other European powers.
What the hell do you mean they were spared the carnage of the 30-year war? Brandenburg-Prussia was absolutely devastated after the conflict. It lost more than half its population through war, disease, hunger, or escaping refugees. The anarchic conditions during the war also meant that the soldiers could brutalize their way through the German lands (including Prussia). Agriculture, trade and infrastructure were utterly ruined and it took almost a century for them to recover. That is also a much more plausible source for the puritanical militarism, since they had very vivid ideas of what might happen if they can't somehow keep up with the competitive landscape of Europe. It's almost like their collective Psyche got so traumatized that they coped with it by subjecting themselves to the one Institution that had the best chance of preventing such a catastrophe from ever happening again. Considering how this all ended, I can't help but imagine a Man not being able to cope with the trauma he suffered in its childhood.
He might've meant Prussia specifically, separate from Brandenburg? Iirc, Prussia itself was more Geographically isolated from the conflict. But yeah that's definitely a weird way to put it.
Napoleon also woke up the Prussians after their military got rusty. After getting steamrolled by him multiple times they realized that it could happen again if they weren't strong enough to fight off anything future threats.
I'm pretty sure he meant Prussia proper, not Brandenburg which was IIRC still its own state during the Thirty Years War and would not become part of Prussia until during or after the war?
This obsession with creating a moral protestant/calvinist state also happened in the city of Geneva. Before joining Switzerland, it was an independent city. During the protestant reformation, it became a center of protestantism and the cradle of calvinism. During Jean Calvin's rule, Geneva became so strict in following protestant morals that it became sort of a "protestant ISIS". Being surrounded by catholic nations, the genevans constructed very thick Vauban-style walls to protect themselves from the evil catholics (the french and the savoyards). They welcomed protestant refugees from all over Europe, but they isolated themselves until very late. Yes, Geneva became a safe heaven for persecuted protestants and it helped to create the institutions which make Geneva a prosperous city today, but it took centuries to pay off. For example, the "anti-catholic walls" (they were not called like that, I invented this term) were only demolished in 1849 ! That's very late compared to other cities, and it happened 34 years after Geneva joined Switzerland
This is pretty much similar to the genesis of the US. While there were many religious and ethnic groups that settled there the puritans were the ones to set the historical narative and mainstream culture. Before the independence the rules in puritan areas were very strict (labour, prayer, recreation in the sense of multiplying rather than relaxation ), the famous Salem witch trials came also be brought up. US remained majorly protestant until recently, for longest time christmas was not celebrated by the majority of the Americans as it was an evil catholic holiday and irish and italian migrants were treated like latin american and muslim are today, they were seen as a lesser race (not quite white), discriminated socially, people sought to deport them and they were forced to live in ghettos. Combine this with racism and it was a hell of the combination. It really started changing only after the WW2 and christmas became nationally celebrated holiday in the later part of the 19 century when there was too many catholics celebrating it that it started changing public perception of it. This is why many pf the conservative arguments are bollocks, not only their arguments are centuries old but if the things went as they wanted then americans still wouldn’t have celebrated christmas, the vital holiday for today’s conservatives that they see as a part of conservative tradition.
@@sktrsh6951I’m sorry but your claim about Christmas is plainly wrong, yes, Puritans were against Christmas but the Anglicans (which formed most of the population in the south and some of the middle colonies) absolutely did celebrate Christmas, as well as the Lutherans who came to America. And to compare Latin Americans and Muslims to the way Catholic immigrants were treated is laughable, anti Catholic sentiment was infinitely worse than that.
I find it quite silly to claim that Prussia paved the way for the Nazi party. It completely disregards that Germany was not just a big blob of Prussia, but that it consisted of various duchies and kingdoms with different political traditions. Especially South Germany voted far more fascist in 1933 than an area like the Rhineland which had been part of Prussia since the Napoleonic wars. And this is despite the South having been at cultural odds with Prussia. In fact, even the Potsdam area voted less fascistic. I'd also like to hear an explanation as to why Austrians, which were never before part of the modern German state, were so disproportionally represented in the SS. To me this part of the video just seems to play on an old outdated stereotype, which blames all of Germanys problems during the first of the 20th on the boogeyman of Prussian militarism, instead of adressing the actual historical circumstances which led to the two world wars.
Isn't really true either. In the Bavarian forest region, mainly the Grafenau, Regen, Freyung and Cham Landkreise, the Nazis had quite some problems of taking over
@@timkey_4542 That doesn't really disprove anything. Roughly 45% of people voted the NSDAP, and there really aren't any massive outliers. The political centre of what was Prussia (so Berlin, Potsdam, Brandenburg) weren't more inclined to vote them. Just look at a map please. There were areas all over Germany were where they won less votes. Bavaria isn't some kind of exception, since the movement was a wider German one, not something that's somehow exclusively Prussian.
@@theq4602 Funnily enough Prussia was dissolved as a political entity in 1932 by Franz von Papen in an attempt to centralize it under the central government and remove power there from the electorate. This in turn later ended up helping the Nazis cement their power.
@@Skyrimfan002 well it disproves South Germany being a fascist nest. Coirse there were areas that voted overwhelmingly NSDAP however in Bavaria for example the BVP almost never lost their majority until late '32 and '33 Look at an electoral map of the July 32 elections and you'll see NSDAP being over 40% in almost every former russian province. Meanwhile in lower bavaria, BVP gained almost 48%
5:07 I just want to point out that this statement is partially incorrect. While the Duchy of Prussia was largely spared, the actual heartland of the Hohenzollern Dukes, Brandenburg lost almost half of its population during the 30 years war and would spend the years afterwards recovering, in large parts by accepting Protestant refugees from other German states, who were fleeing Catholic inquisitions.
@@mrgopnik5964 Furthermore, before the real union of Brandenburg and Prussia, which happened after Prussia gained independence from Poland-Lithuania after the Deluge, Prussia wasn't even in the HRE, Brandenburg which Prussia was in an union with was, but not Prussia itself.
@@mrgopnik5964 Kraut has been confronted with this information, but has responded in a previous comment that he thinks it's not what he was implying. Because Prussia escaped relatively unharmed, it was the Prussian systems, which were more radical, that came to dominate. While the old system of "Brandeburg" administration died out due to the war damage. I think this is what he was implying, but I don't think it's a very good argument.
Little Correction: Also Prussia was mostly spared during the 30 years war, Brandenburg was NOT. And the duke of Brandenburg was at the same time duke of Prussia.
@@Kraut_the_Parrot That feels a bit misleading though. Wasn't the majority of power within Brandenburg-Prussia based within the ravaged lands in-and-around Berlin, and not within the disconnected Polish vassal?
@Kraut_the_Parrot You did say "state called Prussia", without clarifying that it was in reference to the Duchy of Prussia located exclusively within the region of Prussia.
The french and english walked into machine-gun fire just as obediently. The germans were, in fact, given more freedom than the others in deciding how to 'walk' into it ("Auftragstaktik) and were arguably the best army of WW1. So I strongly disagree with the soldier-drone narrative you're trying to create in the last part of the video.
At a tactical level the German army rewarded a high level of independence and decision making at lower levels, especially made by officers. This bottom up approach was very successful, and was kept in WW2 and is adopted by modern armies.
I think perhaps his point was more that people in the army had no intention of pondering why the establishement wanted to go to war, because that was not how they were educated. Maybe they could have a choice, but certainly not on the basis that the state was somehow morally in the wrong. Whereas the French, the British, and their allies were being declared war on. Germany declared war on France and Belgium. Britain had pledged to defend Belgium. When your allies or your country is the target of a declaration of war, there are very few who would say objecting to a defensive war is a good moral standpoint.
I still agree though, that the better part of Europeans were very eager to go to war with their neighbors, including the French and British. But the indoctrination probably was not by means of holding obeisance as the highest virtue. Patriotism and a heinous grudge against the Prussian was probably more it for the French, and for the British, fear and contempt of the central powers and the German people in general.
@@knorkeundso1000 Yeah it's a bit dramatic. This kind of thing is somewhat easy and common to pull off in authoritarian and/or militaristic states. The respect to rank and class is the foundation that gets drilled into everyone first, but with so many new recruits and so many slight variations between regions and different divisions, not many uniformed people have the knowledge and experience to be discerning or the attitude to be looking out for imposters. It's also a self trap imposed by every ideological authority: if you look and act the part, then whatever you're doing is inherently right, and it takes either someone of higher rank who is more right to challenge you or for you to commit such a serious violation of the rules or inhumane act that even the lowest ranks won't do it.
The "last witch burning in Europe" was about Barbara Zdunk in 1811 and what you portray is inaccurate. First of all, this was at the time of the Napoleonic Wars and Prussia lost territory ( literally half of it`s land ) and was heavily regulated and occupied by French authorities........ Prussia between 1806-1813 was defeated and partially occupied and not an independent country.... Then Barbara Zdunk was a self-proclaimed witch and magician who was known for her knowledge and fondness of magic. She was 42 years old and unmarried, at a time where this made you into an extreme social outcast and weirdo. And then there was a fire in the town of Rezelwas in 1806 ( caused by Polish soldiers who allied with Napoleon ) and people tried to blame anyone, like most mob-hunts, they are not official and happen by random people.. I.e. compare Zdunk not with the official witch trials ( no historian acknowledges her case as witch trial by the way ) but rather the lynching in America in the 19th and 20th centuries and other mob-hysteria incidents. She was also Polish and thus suspected of having helped set the fire to the town. All in all, everything spoke against her from a mob point of view. Witchcraft wasn`t a crime in Prussia at the time and the last time Prussia had an actual witch trial was in 1714, pretty much 100 years before Zdunk who was a victim of mob hysteria. She also wasn`t burnt, but was strangled to death and then her body was burnt. The people of the town were mad at losing against Napoleon, they were mad at the Poles who took advantage, they were mad their city is half-burnt down and thus they blamed that one old, unmarried, weird, self-proclaimed polish witch for it. Prussia was an enlightend and authoritarian state and naturally it didn`t have fanatically religious rules. ---- Also Prussia was Lutheran Protestant, not Calvinist. It was only the Hohenzoller dynasty which was Calvinist, while in the video you claimed Prussia was Calvinist ( which was an extreme minority of below 2% ).
What do you mean Prussia was spared the 30 years war? Brandeburg-Prussia was msotly occupied by Swedish and Imperial force snad utterly destroyed. It was THAT which caused Prussian militarism in an attempt to make sure it never happens again.
@@Kraut_the_Parrot Well, you are clearly talking about Prussia as a state not a geographic region. The devastation of Brandenburg during the 30 years war was exactly the reason Hohenzollerns building the standing army (hence the Prussian militarism).
@@Kraut_the_Parrot But you cannot use that excuse to talk about origins of Prussian militarism from the country of Prussia which at that point was ruled by the same monarch as Brandenburg from Berlin under Bradengurg-Prussia. It gives the completely wrong idea that the Hohenzollerns used them beign spared to get up militarily while they got up militarily exactly because the destruction of their home state. You just give the completely wrong reason. If you are going to make so many fundemental mistakes for the purpose of time just return to making 3 hour videos because this is just beyond reductionism, it is essentially lying about a key concept.
@@Kraut_the_Parrotobviously he didn't mean the geographic term but rather "Prussia[n Kingdom of that time]". That's why in the next sentence he interchangeably used Brandenburg-Prussia. To be honest, at 5:06 you yourself used the coat of arms of Kingdom of Prussia, which includes the Margraviate of Brandenburg, rather than coat of arms of Duchy of Prussia
@@Kraut_the_Parrot Brandonburg was the heartland of the Prussian state up until the acquisition of the Rhineland,duchal Prussian which the hollenzollers got through the teutonic knights may not have been as devastated by the 30 years war but it still felt the effects of it massively.
@@fullmetaltheorist High trust makes them join up against a single "threat" instead of competing between themselves or adopting good ideas from it. OP mentions a similar event at around 16:07. Upstart innovator comes out, established industry fights against it instead of trying to adjust their ways.
Well that and also the fact thag they are inefficient, a burden on the electrical grid and dont really resolve any issues. Doesnt matter if your entire country uses EVs if you still produce your energy with fossil fuel.
@@anonymousanonymous7250 My mother has family in Germany, I was forced to listen to long tangents about how much of a pain in the *** it is to interact with the government clerks in Germany if you don’t have all your paperwork in order. Apparently the government offices are understaffed and overworked, so if you’re missing any documentation expect them to become very irate and passive aggressive.
One thing that you skipped was that prussia wasn't originally a part of the holy roman empire at all. They were a vassal of poland, and prior to that a military order of monks (which is very fitting too)
"When you think of hundreds of thousands of men obediently marching into French machine gun fire" as opposed to the majority of Europe that did not obediently march into enemy machine gun fire in WW1.😁
All European soldiers did not imagine the hellscape they would live in when they left their homes for war, but the Germans mostly stayed disciplined and servile throughout the conflict; that was not the case for all nations. The Russians made two Revolutions, many Frenchmen mutinied to obtain better treatment on the front in 1917, and succeeded.
For the entente they didn’t willingly do suicidal attacks, their officers made them do it with a gun to their head. By the end of the war the French army was in an all out mutiny executing their officers and all.
@@DaDa-ui3sw What about the Brits? The Turks, Austrians, Italians, etc.? Just because the French and the Russians got especially battered in 1917 does not make the Germans some special servile people, especially as 1918 sees a revolution.
@@univeropa3363 no but the organization and 'Geist' of the German army and nation incentivised servile behaviour. The Revolution could finally occur when this order was shattered by the defeat.
One of my teachers worked in a German school for a stint. He made the huge mistake of letting his students adress him simply by his given name. Rather than Mr/Teach Lastname. He could never win the kids respect back after that
The German Empire is interesting in the fact that it wasn't a despotic monarchy like Russia, or a fully democratic monarchy like the UK, they instead were in a strange middle ground. Unlike Russia there was a well entrenched constitution, an elected parliament and a strong legal system. But unlike the UK, the constitution de facto gave the Kaiser a fair amount of power (not enough to be an authoritarian leader, but enough to overpower parliament under the right circumstances); German suffrage was still subdivided into economic class, giving the aristocracy a larger vote share; and the legal system, while strong, was often designed to actively favor the Aristocracy and other conservative elements in the system. Overall, it is incorrect to label the German Empire as an authoritarian state, but it also wasn't a full democracy. I believe that such a intermediate system was always meant to tilt one way or the other eventually.
@@Kraut_the_Parrot I think that it definitely started that way (and also ended that way too); but in my opinion from its founding until the outset of WW1 the empire took small but incremental steps towards greater parliamentarism, especially after Bismark left the chancellorship. Some chancellors like von Caprivi and von Bethmann Hollweg actively passed legislation that partially lifted restrictions on political oppostion and democratized certain regions of the empire respectively (even at the tacit opposition of the Kaiser). As time went on, Kaiser Wilhelm found himself increasingly forced to look for chancellors that were amenable to the Reichstag even when he had reservations about them. This was in part due to his personal inability at imposing his will on the state, but the resulting loss of power of to crown as an institution was all the same. Granted, when the war started many of these advances were rolled back, albeit with the consent of the Reichstag. Though by the latter half of the war Germany had become a full military dictarorship under Hindemburg and Luddendorf.
I think a proper modern analogue to Imperial Germany is an illiberal constitutional monarchy. It maintained the trappings of representative democracy to satisfy the liberal middle class but not enough to threaten the military aristocracy and its own interests. It promises economic freedom and prosperity for select people that fit within the system but demands that at the cost of civil liberties and actual autonomy and personal agency. As someone pointed out, it’s very similar to Pinochet’s government. I’ve regrettably seen a lot of apologists for this regime and none of them have lived through an actual authoritarian state and suffered the wrath of the myriad enforcers and bureaucrats that sustain it. Case in point, Razorfist at one point frequently made the “helicopter rides” a meme. How a metal head who wears tight black clothes and listens to rebellious music that would offend the sensibilities of posh military aristocrats wouldn’t be sent to the same Atacama death camps is a mystery to me.
@@windscar15 I agree that the term illiberal constitutional monarchy fits the German Empire well. There was some legitimate limited constitutionalism to appease the growing middle class. But enough checks remained in the system to prevent socialists and other anti-establishment opposition to gain any significant power. That said, I think Pinochet's regime was far harsher and despotic than that of Imperial Germany. Elections in Chile during his reign were essentially a sham, with the Chilean congress being essentially a highly coerced rubber stamp. Furthermore, the regime dealt with opposition by means of mass extra-judicial executions. In the German Empire the Reichstag did have some legitimate (albeit limited) power. While the Kaiser could appoint the the chancellor, basically every chancellor after von Caprivi had been selected as a compromise between the Kaiser and the Reichstag. In other words, Kaiser could not effectively govern without some at least some limited support from the Reichstag. Furthermore, Social Democrats were allowed to exist as an organized party in Imperial Germany. Even if subtantially harassed by the German state through what we call "Lawfare", they were still a legal force within German politics and could exercise some limited influence. Both of these things would have been absolutely unthinkable under Pinochet. The only time when there was anything similar to this was the last year or so of the regime during the lead-up and immediate aftermath of the 1988 referendum, a time where there was some limited pluralism.
@@sync9847 absolutely, if anything Pinochet’s regime liked the aesthetics and philosophical trappings of Prussia but tended towards far more overt totalitarianism. The culture of illiberal constitutionalism in Germany ultimately led to the collapse of the Weimar government. The concept of legitimate anti-establishment opposition never took root. Meaning the only thing stopping the reactionary monarchist and future far right parties were equally radical communist groups looking to simply dismantle the trappings of democracy even further. Ultimately, the end result of the half hearted Bismarck experiment was the very societal instability and chaos it hoped to stop.
I'm sorry but What source did you use to say that the Prussian state was "calvinist"? Most of the prussian population was Lutheran and Duke Albrecht adopted lutheran doctrine as his personal faith. It had yes a minority of Huguenots that where calvinist but it seems like quite a leap of faith (sort to say) to have it mean that the prussian state was calvinist. It would be similar to say that the polish state was jewish for it brought jews to their realm and used them to build their nation or at least, your video can make it imply which is not good. I really love your video but that point really struck a cord with me as something just too weird. I hope you can come back to explain what you mean because it's just strange. Also, on another point, I feel like people should demystify the term "army with a state". A less glamourous term for such a thing but nontheless very much fitting is simply "military dictatorship".
@@piolit06 I think Kraut may suffer from the "hammer and nail" syndrom where he tries to fit the idea in the box he likes even if it doesn't really work here. He did something similar with the "russian becames mongols" which he got quite a lot of flak for doing it.
@@tylerbozinovski427 his claim was that "the state is calvinist". So, give me such a definition where it can justify both that the prussian state was calvinist that doesn't also include that the polish state was Jewish.
@@ulricmorningstar3524 He was technically correct when he called the Prussian STATE Calvinist. That's not the same as saying all of Prussian society was. But yes, I agree that the lack of clarification probably tipped many viewers off. Your Poland analogy doesn't work, since the vast majority of Poland's government AND society have never been Jewish.
Although prussia was mostly spared the ransacking of the 30 years war, Brandenburg, arguably the real state that formed germany, had half of its population killed during the war even though they were neutral in theory
I think it's funny how Germans are frequently surprised when Austrians still have the stereotype of Prussian Battle Droids about them. Like, it might not be a thing any more but it was a pretty defining characteristic for a long time.
All states are moral authorities. What changes is what is considered immoral, or immoral enough to be a crime. What are the regulations against incest if not a moral imposition? What was the Prohibition in the United States? What is the banning of slavery? What is the banning of child labor? Edit: It is also very intellectually dishonest to pretend this is something only conservatives do. The Prohibition was spearheaded by the progressives, and especially women. Today, there are quotas for minorities in many countries and institutions in the West, and there is regulation of speech against minorities as well. You may believe these moral impositions by the state to be good or bad, but moral impositions by the state they are.
Yeah that edit is exactly what I thought as soon as Kraut started talking about RiGhT wInG pOpUlIsM, I see this issue in the west as generally being progressive one rather than a right wing populist one. While this sentiment does exist to varying degrees in different populist movements, just as common is libertarianism which advocates for the exact opposite. In stark contrast, even self proclaimed left libertarians tend to favour the state enforcing wide reaching moral proscriptions such as hate speech laws as a matter of public morality.
@@moritamikamikara3879 One could even argue libertarianism (even in its most extreme form, anarcho-capitalism) is still imposing morals on the population (in this case, the morals of the Non-Aggression Principle) even without the existence of a state, through private law enforcement. A society with no moral impositions is silly. We must all agree on at least some morals in order to live together. What worries me most about many progressives is not that they don't realize they too want to and do make moral impositions, but that many of them believe moral impositions are optional or even evil (to be sure, some are!) to begin with.
@@stefanionutalexandru6916 Not at all! I left my nihilistic years behind long ago. I would say I'm way more romantic than the average guy when it comes to right and wrong, societies, etc.
I can't take anything you make seriously until you respond to the video Noj rants made on your russian authoritarianism video. If you're applying the same approach and level of research to all of these videos they're honestly not worth watching
I’ve always wondered where the stereotype of German seriousness and bureaucracy come from. Obviously there’s always more to the story, but this is a great overview of the history!
@@andmicbro1 yeah tbh if everyone was Catholic and Prussia never existed, a certain failed painter would have had a more difficult job commanding his people to genocide its way through Europe
"If you think of hundred of thousand of men obidietly marching into french machine gun fire in 1917" Its not like the other states with their different setup were any different in this...
I would like to disagree quite harshly that the Nazi German state was a high trust state in the extreme, it was a high trust state, but the gestapo and other government body's made it impossible to openly distrust the state. I would argue here it's more a scale of obedience, you can trust a state but not be blindly obedient, I can fully trust my government today and still question their actions.
I am not saying that Nazi Germany was a high trust society in the extreme, I am saying that a high trust society in the extreme is what enabled the rise of the nazis to power, and the unconditional obedience to authority that the Nazis took advantage of.
@@Kraut_the_Parrot well even with that I would argue you are not really making a good argument, the high trust you describe wasn't really there ein the Weimar republic especially when the nazis started winning, 3 years I think the government barely functioned and it was times when people struggled economically. Overall I would argue the Weimar republic fell in part due to loss of trust in working efficiently, which is arguably why we see more eextremists rising again as trust in the government has plummeted. Again I would argue it's the government obedience which was the main issue, as when a new government which seemed competent and as auch trustworthy was finally reestablished people went back to obedience even when they did not agree In modern Germany it's still very present the thought that you need to obey authority, nowadays it's also heavily implied you only should follow if your morals aren't compromised but still. As such I think your point was not well made in that regard at least from where I stand maybe I made some logical error or misunderstood something but I still have to disagree even with your correction of my first statement. But thank you very much for the reply, I did misrepresent your argument by mistake sorry for that, even if the core of my argument remains the same (that trust wants the issue but obedience, but of course not the only issue that allowed the nazis to rise, there were many more factors like fear and economics etcm)
I'm not sure if you're gonna see this comment but I'm gonna ask anyways: what are the sources of your video? I'm asking because im really into history books and I'd like to read some books about German history
he did claimed that Nazism was the climax of a high trust society with too much trust on the government, which is not related to the ethnicity of its political party's founders
That Hitler was born in Austria and his party founded in Bavaria changes absolutely nothing about the National Socialist ideology being a basically secular and racist version of the Prussian being. The whole Nazi State was the climax and cruel perfection of the Prussian bureaucratic mindset of obedience to authority.
Kind of telling that you even get a word like Obrigkeitshörigkeit (not Obrigkeitsgehörigkeit, which is gibberish) wrong. The largely non-German and historically clueless consumers of your video will not realize that you offer them a tired old narrative. Actual historians have far surpassed this tale spun out of bourgeois 19th century myths. For those interested in an actual assessment of Prussia and Calvinism, read Iron Kingdom by Christopher Clark.
Watching political videos means that no matter how much you like a content creator you should always be critical of every work with that in mind I‘ll say that I respectfully but strongly disagree with the main take of this video Kraut. I know from your past videos that you have a very critical opinion on Prussia and majorly blame the state for the establishment of the third reich but I think that is very forced and shortsighted. 1. Calvinism: I‘ll admit that I do not know much about this however I do know that on two occasions Prussia took in Jewish refugees… that already contradicts the portrayal of this video. Why this was left out if it is all so clear I do not know? 2. Based on this analysis the Prussian states should have voted majorily fascist in the Weimar Republic… however they did not so it is difficult to draw a connection between the prussian state as a whole and fascism. If anything you could argue that prussian militarism led to the military not questioning the leader‘s action like they did in WW1 and WW2. The famous following of rules in a blind manner is the most prussian trait if anything during these times. 3. The steamboat example is also severly lacking in my opinion. Let’s talk about the often overlooked Frederick Wilhelm I. who was oke of the first leaders to state that the job of the monarchs is to serve the state instead of the state serving them. While yes especially the cultural programs‘ funding was harshly cut all of it was redistributed in the army but also funding of science. The Prussian monarchy can be blamed of a lot of things but backwardness and lacking openness for technology isn’t one of them. To say that because of religion still playing a predominant role in Prussia the country and its people were not willing to adept and industrialise is simply wrong. If anything Prussia can be criticsied for being a technocratic militaristic State with absolutists structures but if we compare this to other states of the time I personally believe Prussia is getting criticised way to much in comparison. 4. On a side note: The whole militarism angle itself is somewhat flawed. The army was created due to the war between sweden and russia at the time, both marching through Prussian territory unannounced. It needed a big army to deal with that where is the connection between this decision and Nazi Germany? 5.And lastly if these developments led to the establishment of an autocratic Nazi Germany… how does that explain Italy and ither fascist governments? Italy at the time was a low trust society with high levels of division same was greece before it fell under the hands of the junta… it seems more like any kind of lacking stability leads to extreme forms of government taking power. I think we can explain the German behaviour in WW1 with Prussian militarism but the rise of fascism can easily be blamed of the Weimar republic and it‘s lacking structures as well as the aftermath of WW1 and the treaty of Versailles all of this created a high level of unstability and similar to Italy and Greece. The only outlier in this group is Japan and as you explained yourself in your own video about Japan once it is in fact a very special case. And sure a high trust society helped in stabilizing the goverment once ot took power I am not debating you on that, it was a societal weakness the fascists fully exploited BUT it is not what led us down the road of fascism. It is if anything the cement or at least a big part of what held it together once it was build.
I am very sorry for my bad english and my wrong wrighting. English is not my first languege and I have dyslexia. I also do not want to offend anyone with this comment. But I have to say this as someone who watches your channel for quiet a while now. So where to start. I understand why you as liberal or leftwinger dislike Prussia and the Empire. But I do not belive it is based on historical fact. It is more based on steoreotypes than anything else. You see Prussia as a conservative, capitalist and militarist state. And because of this assumption you completly ignore everything that does not support that narrative. Why did you not mention that Prussia adopted a constitution and a form of democracy after 1848? Or why did you not mention that the power of parliament massivly increased over time in the Empire? Also could you have mentioned the fact that Prussia was a very tolerant country in religious affairs. But again would not fit your narrative right? So you confinitly droped it. The Empire also was not a zentralised state as you say. The states still had significant power. Also Prussia was not a libertarian country. That is a ridicoules claim. The german Empire had not only a lot of regulations but also one of the worlds first wellfare states. Something you also conviniently dropped. But hey everything for the narrative right. Now to your end goal. I guess you want to blame WW1, the Nazis and WW2 on Prussian militarism. Which in my respectfull opinion is simply wrong. WW1 is a responsebility of pretty much everyone involved. Especaly France, Britain and Austria-Hungary. France because they wanted this war so desperatly to take back Elsas-Lothringen. Britain because they simply wanted to dominante the world and saw Germany as their most dangerous rival in that endeavour. And Austria-Hungary for starting the hall war. Well Germany is not innocent when it comes to WW1. They invaded an neutral Belgium and Luxemburg and heated up tention bevor with Wilhelms colonial dreams. But you can not say that Germany is resposible for that war in my opinion. To many countries wanted that war. And the Nazi and WW2 link is just ridicoules in my opinion. Again sorry for my writting. Dyslexie is a mean thing
One thing that stuck with me after watching a video from a lolbertarian I like is how one thing that Prussia exported and remains to this day is the Prussian education model. If you look at the American school system, it’s heavily modeled on it. The great thing about the system is that it’s not really designed to encourage individual growth but rather adherence to hierarchy and rules. The standards are artificially low because the point is to do what the system was designed for, produce obedient workers for the industrial economy and managerial state. Success in this system is largely in spite of it. The emphasis on grades and test score patterns is a means of externalizing validation from authority. Something that’s vitally important in ensuring worker loyalty and compliance. I’m probably really off base here and I encourage people to correct me but that’s something that stood out to me after watching this.
Even as a Prussia/Imperial Germany fan, I have to admit the education system it created has its flaws, most notably its vulnerability to ideological subversion, like what we've seen in schools and universities throughout the West, which have been taken over by Marxist ideologues who ruthlessly shove their views down students' throats.
Its really annoying that for some reason it's so common among social scientific RU-vidrs to never list their sources. Even those that have an academic background and should be used to it. Would be much easier to identify quality content and find out who ist actually right if people would just list where they have their ideas from.
@@simonn6438 I wont. Because when I did all I got was a horde of commie garbage, starting with Bad Empanada, making videos screaming "THOSE ARE LIBERAL BOOKS! LIBSHIT BOOKS BAD!". So fuck that. I am not here to be a punching bag for the "Stalin did nothing wrong" swamp of youtube.
@@Kraut_the_Parrot that's better than nothing but still not citing sources is jusy unacademic in a way that detracts from the value of your content, how are we supposed to believe anything claims you make?
Sorry but the part about high trust society is not right. You show prussias high trust as a route to blind obedience to the state. You literally have the same blind obedience in russia and yet it is on the very opposite end of being a high-trust society.
@@deutschermichel5807 it's a mockery of the implications that religion pre-determines the development and behaviour of society abd and people as a whole, I believe.
The end is kinda confusing why did you made a parallel between german bureaucracy and war. Every other nation has its wars and human crimes while not having Germany-like structure. What is the point of your parallel?
Funny seeing France described as the strong feudal power when compared to Germany, while in Anglo-American history France is described as having a weak feudal system when compared to England.
One other point. The core Nazi's weren't Prussians. They were southern Germans, either Bavarians or Austrians. Which meant they were Catholics. So not Protestant and definitely not Calvinist. In a sense they were Habsburgs who wanted to be Prussian. Habsburgs who had witnessed two and a half centuries of Prussian growth. Often at cost to the Habsburgs. They saw the success and they wished to emulate it. Albeit in their own way.
Are you sure about the influence of Calvinism on Prussian politics? In most of Prussia the people were Lutheran; only part of the Hohenzollern royal family were Calvinist. (At Schloss Hohenzollern in Baden-Württemberg you can visit the Roman Catholic and Reformed chapels next to one another in the same castle, which, as an English person, is quite a strange sight to see in a royal castle.) Moral strictures and the idea of ‘realms’ to me seems to resemble a lot more Pietist Lutheranism and the Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms. The Dutch model is closer to typical Calvinist/Reformed ideas.
@@Kraut_the_Parrot do you have a source for that second claim? Because as far as I'm aware, the Prussian nobility was mostly Lutheran, which would make sense since Eastern Germany was mostly influenced by Luther while the west was more influenced by Calvin etc. I don't really see why the conversion of the Hohenzollern, (which happened mostly for political reasons) would change that.
I read Iron Kingdom, by Christopher Clark, on the history of Prussia, about a year ago and this video tells a very different story from that book. And it left me very confused.
I'm pretty sure it's "Obrigkeitshörigkeit" and not"-gehörigkeit" since "gehörig" denotes ownership or social adequacy and "hörig" denotes obligation to follow commands. Otherwise a nice and compact rundown
Gehörig can also mean membership or affiliation. More generally, something is gehörig if it is part of or belongs to something else. Hörig isn't limited to obligation either; voluntary subservience also counts.
Der König absolut, wenn er unsern willen tut. (The king is absolute, as long as he does what we want) was a Prussian saying for a reason. The amount of militarism and royal control in Prussia is somewhat overstated in the anglosphere.
Oooh, so much of bad, or at least superficial, history and sociology in the first 10min,.... I mean, sure, you just cant really do ajustice to all the topics and theories you bring up. I gess it might be good introduction material to poeple who know zero about central europe and its history, politics,.... but I worry, people will get fooled by your neat youtuber scientists skills.....
Just do it better then or at the very least explain mote precisely what issues you have. I have a masterd in polsci, so it's not lost on me that these videos don't exactly meet academic standards or should be taken at fsace value, but they are still really good and no worse than many of the popular bestsellers about politics.
The steam engine story sounded too good to be true and indeed Wikipedia disagrees with you. Papin invented the steam pressure cooker and a component on this machine later inspired Newcomen's invention of the steam engine. The boat that may or may not have been destroyed was powered by a hand crank, not a steam engine (which would not be invented until after Papin's death).
05:07 Prussia did suffer greatly in the war. Although they did not suffer as much as the strongest hit regions (Thuringia, Pomerania,…) they did lose more than a third of their population, which is a devastating loss. For further information, check out the video made by „House of History“ about the „Great Elector“. The series about Prussia is great too. Anyways, great video, appreciate it!
West- Francia was in no way more centralised than the early HRE and the late Carolingian and Capetian Kings were not more powerful within their own realm than, say, the Ottonians or early Salians... The French Kings had even more trouble keeping their vassals in line than the Emperors had. The royal domains of the German kings were also larger (of course, this varies depending on the king/emperor and the time).
Absolutely correct. Medieval kings just had no way to exerce authority over large lands, with the very limited means of communication. The distance you could travel on a horse in one day pretty much was your land. Same in Germany or France.
This is the dumbest and most transparently political video essay I've watched in a while. Of all the reasons Germany descended into Nazism, being too high trust probably wouldn't make the top 20. It's not even relevant, Nazi Germany was a totalitarian state where people were turning their neighbors into the state. People were hiding children with disabilities from being euthanized. Nothing about Nazi Germany is high trust, and there's plenty of high trust societies that exist, almost independent of politics (Japan, continually from 1900-2000's, possibly with a blip from 1945-50.) This video is about either continuing to paint every modern complaint Conservatives have as fascist, or a way of coping with clearly deteriorating social conditions by way of moral obfuscation.
5.20 Nope. The Prussians did not become Calvinists. In 1525, Prussia became a Lutheran state and later united with the also Lutheran Brandenburg. In 1613, John Sigismund converted from Lutheranism to Calvinism, but the population of Prussia remained Lutheran. So we had a situation (for about 250 years) of a Calvinist ruler and a majority Lutheran population.
the fact that the rulers and the aristocracy were calvinists, is what matters here. they were the ones who built the prussian state, not the general peasantry.
@@Kraut_the_Parrot According to my knowledge, this is partly true. A significant part of the aristocracy and the later Junkers remained Lutheran, but (in the 17th and 18th centuries) they found themselves generally excluded from civil and court careers. It is true that the Calvinist Junkers had to compete for these positions with the Calvinist aristocracy and the non-aristocracy of foreign origin. This doesn't really refute the main thesis of the movie, but it shows that it was more complicated.
@@Kraut_the_Parrotthat is a very interesting point. Why do you think the lutheran majority still accepted the moral authority of the calvinist state? If there was not consensus of confession between the officials and the citizens, how did Prussia's high trust state come to be?
It's pretty ironic that the Prussian military demands blind obedience while its doctrine, Auftragstaktik, requires initiative and independent thinking from the lower ranks! 😅
Not really. Auftragstaktik requires the subservient to do what is told without having your boss look over your shoulder the entire time, it can only exist in a society where obedience is expected.
"It's pretty ironic that the Prussian military demands blind obedience" This is the very nature of any military in the world. Nothing special to Prussia.
@@kodor1146 You didn't read the entire comment. The irony wasn't that they demanded blind obedience, the irony was that they did it while also having doctrine that required initiative, which blindly obedient people are usually bad at.
Konstanz mentioned 🥳 My hometown in an English speaking video about the history of the HRE is something I didn’t know I needed. Sadly the influence of Konstanz declined after the late middle ages and after we brought an imperial ban upon the city in the 1500s we were conquered by austrian troops and incorporated into outer Austria until the dissolvement of the HRE
Hi Kraut at 9:10 I think you mean "obrigkeitshörigkeit" not obrigkeits-GE-hörigkeit. The first means to follow orders from people above you and the latter is as far as I know no word but I would translate it with belonging to someone above you, as "gehören" means to belong to and "hören" means to hear or to listen (for example to orders from above)... Sry to nitpick but as we say in Germany: deutsch ist eine waffe
I miss the days of longer videos. Two months for 20 minutes? I almost never turn on notifications for a channel, but Kraut hooked me from the start. I get that making longer videos comes with its challenges, but I can't help missing them. Keep up the great work-sending love from Iran!
I must disagree. What you called Prussia in the thirty year war was completely ravaged by the war. Brandenburg, as what qe should be focusing on in the war, had no standing army capable of defending its lands. The rulers tried to stay neutral and not get involved with any side. Thus the villages of almost every Mark were sacked and the population tortured by BOTH sides. This lead to a common memory among the people of never wanting to be too weak to defend itself again. This is why a strong military was thought to be mandatory to survive in this new world. The thirty years war is not to be neglected.
I miss your three part, all afternoon long productions so much... 22mins is just sad for me. I'll probably keep rewatching the Turkish Century till I know it by heart
The entire concept of laws is based uppon the fact that the state is the ultimate enforcer of morality A law against child beating for example exists because it is seen as unethical and the state enforces these rules
I don’t think the ultimate enforcer of morality is a good description. More like a secular enforcer of collective morality, or what the overwhelming majority of citizens see as wrong or harmful conduct. People still place their individual philosophies, religions, and other sources of morality over the state’s laws, but everyone or so many citizens as to matter can agree murder is wrong, so murder becomes a crime.
@aaroncohen2700 no. You can't place your individual morality over state law. That's why we separated state and religion It is completely irrelevant if you or the majority of the citizens of a country don't like a law. If the state dictates it is counts and the only why to change the law is through the authority of the state itself
The entire concept of law is not based on the idea that the state is the ultimate enforcer of morality else there is no such thing as an unjust law. The state, as the ultimate enforcer of morality, would also be the highest authority on morality. If the state passed a law stating that all married individuals cannot refuse a call for sexual service by a members of the ruling class, by what authority do you have to call it unjust?
@@flolow6804 but you can, if you decide not to engage with the law or its systems. And in government where the state answers to the people it governs enough people would be able to exercise political power to have the law changed.
@@aaroncohen2700 how the fuck can you not engage with a law if you dont want to ? (Asking for tax evasion purposes) And yes and no. The people can vote for other people to be the organs of the state. By that they are part of the state
I really love how u bind and make everything go togeheter without "chapter" stamps. Even the ad is incorporated into the story, which keeps the flow of the vid, thx once again
I learned so much so quickly from this video I'm not even sure what to comment about. Maybe I'll finish processing in a few days Masterful summary and insight, though! Bravo!
You can already tell, even though I’m a day late from the release. I haven’t watched it yet but six seconds and you can already tell it’s gonna be a classic kraut and tea 🫖 episode 💪🔥
How could you talk about the weakness of the Holy Roman Emperors without talking about the Great Interregnum??? It was maybe THE event that lead to the emperors not being able to control his vassals. It directly lead to everything else being possible.
@@Kraut_the_Parrot I feel like if the premise of your video is about German decentralism and centralism and the entire bureacracy, mentioning it at least passingly that it created the conditions for what comes next would have been a good idea.
Great video, I think this will be one of your best series, as videos analyzing these topics normally don’t start at such an in depth or far back time as you did in this video. They normally start from after Napoleon, which I think is wrong.
Small Annotation: You start your count with "zuerst" and continue it with "zweitens". Counting that way is incredibly unsusual. Idk if it is strictly wrong, but you should avoid it. It goes "Erstens" then "Zweitens" then "Drittens" etc.
Technically it could be considered correct since the "-erst" is the same as in "Erstens", but everybody would give you weird looks for saying it like that. It's like starting a numbered list with "in the beginning" and then continuing with "second". It's the kind of thing that shows you don't really speak the language in casual conversations.
This combines several historiographic overgeneralisations that are broadly discredited in Prussian histiography. Firstly, you can do a nuanced analysis of the role of Calvinism in statecraft, but this isn't it. Ideas of a Protestant ethic are more stereotypes than backed by any hard data, and the Prussian monarchy had to tread lightly because their population was Lutheran. Secondly, suggesting that such emphasis carried through to the German Empire is a complete misreading of the Kulturkampf and ignores the fact the German state actually found itself unable to enforce religious boundaries and eventually relied on catholic moderates for legitimacy. And thirdly, the whole problem here is teleological history. Sonderweg is tempting because we of course view Germany through the evils of Nazism, but reading history backward like this to a long story of militarism cannot and should not be done. One must look for more proximate causes before cherrypicking what fits what we know will transpire after events.
My brother in Christ Dutch calvinists would not let go of the chance to create a Calvinist state if they could. They couldn’t because even after the partition of the kingdom in 1830 catholics made up 40% of the population and the remaining protestants weren’t all Bible bashers. The first decades of the kingdom under its liberal constitution (adopted in 1848) were marred by protestant and liberal governments succeeding each other, fighting over whether to adhere to that constitution or not (a fundamental part of which was the enfranchisement of religious minorities). Prior to the Napoleonic wars, Catholic-majority areas were basically heavily taxed colonies that weren’t represented in the estates-general. Our history is very interesting, you should read about it some time.
Interesting video, very well made. Could you please share the sources that you used? I wish to investigate on my own some of the things that you mentioned and had never heard of until now.
The more I learn about history, the more I realize what "standing on the shoulders of giants" means, even with social matters as yesterdays matters are but a social experiment today.
