What is the largest that Germany can realistically become?

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History Learner
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Re: What is the largest that Germany can realistically become?

#31

Post by History Learner » 25 Jan 2019, 21:44

Futurist wrote:
25 Jan 2019, 19:09
The suffrage issue should become bigger over time, though. After all, I can't imagine the gerrymandered Prussian voting system surviving indefinitely. I'll use the U.S. as an example--while rural areas were overrepresented in state legislatures before the 1960s, the public refused to tolerate this problem forever--which resulted in pressure on the U.S. Supreme Court to implement the "one person, one vote" rule and require equipopulous districts everywhere other than the U.S. Senate. Similarly, in Britain, the rotten boroughs were abolished in 1832 and the suffrage was gradually expanded in the 19th and early 20th centuries to include more and more people. I suspect that something similar would have happened in Imperial Germany over time even without the World Wars.
It's important to note the Reynolds v. Sims ruling came at the peak of Post-World War II Liberalism in the United States, something that was not universal around the world even then and was a rather specific set of circumstances to the American political culture. A lot of the movement on restricting urban influence was born in the 1920s, when the ratio of urban to rural surpassed 50-50. Imperial Germany was indeed a very different political culture, with very different standards; it remained more rural than the United States for longer and overall had a more conservative political climate. We must also remember that-in both Germany and in Russia-the capacity to accept non-democratic regimes was strong in the 20th Century.
Also, by the start of WWI, literacy in the Russian Empire was likely approaching 70% among the younger generation. Almost 70% of conscripts to the Russian Army/military were literate in 1913:

https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/925725637104558085

Thus, Germany's potential to Germanize large numbers of Slavs by introducing them to literacy via the German language appears to have been rather limited by the time of World War I.
Any other sources on this? It's news to me and I think could be useful on issues related to this subject in future debates?

South
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Re: What is the largest that Germany can realistically become?

#32

Post by South » 26 Jan 2019, 02:06

Good evening Wm,

Futurist explicitly referenced the Third Reich Germany and the former SSRs of the USSR. Otherwise, I'd have used the Mongolian People's Republic in my reply to Futurist. Ulan Bator didn't fare too badly after WWII - because it didn't start too well off pre-war.

Actually, it's NOT sufficient to compare GDP of a socialist economic state with a non-socialist state (Completely agree; Spain was a mess until they adopted some market economics.

Not to refute Futurist's point now, but rather to illustrate the "apples and oranges" not allowing a real comparison, here's a letter to the editor:

All within the dashed lines are an exact quote.

=================================

In 1968, as director of the Czech-Slovak State Bank, I made a study of effective outlays for military purposes. Since the method of national account ing used was actually introduced in Czechoslovakia by Soviet experts, it can be assumed that what we found applies with equal force to the Soviet system.

Our study concluded that what was actually allocated to the military was more than three times the formal military budget. We found, for instance, that the costs of transportation, oil, gasoline, food, etc., were far cheaper for the military than for civilian consumers or producers.

Eugen Loehl
New York

================================

Above letter in the 28 March 1977 BUSINESS WEEK Magazine

..............

Back to Futurist's point; West Germany received some Marshall Plan assistance and also some military protection assistance. This must be incorporated into the politico-economic picture presented by Futurist.


~ Bob
eastern Virginia, USA


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Re: What is the largest that Germany can realistically become?

#33

Post by Futurist » 26 Jan 2019, 02:12

South wrote:
25 Jan 2019, 20:35
Good afternoon Futurist,

Can you provide some premier-apex type examples of "Communism and WWII hurt the ex-USSR countries more than...Germany"?
First of all, the USSR proportionally endured larger casualties as a result of WWII than Germany did. There were only around 75 men for every 100 women in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus in 1950--in contrast to something like 85 men for every 100 women in Germany in 1950.

As for Communism, the Communists ruled over the entire Soviet Union for over 70 years while only ruling over a quarter of Germany (population-wise) for 45 years. In turn, it is unsurprising that Germany is currently much wealthier than the former Soviet Union on a per capita basis.

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Re: What is the largest that Germany can realistically become?

#34

Post by Futurist » 26 Jan 2019, 02:26

History Learner wrote:
25 Jan 2019, 21:44
Futurist wrote:
25 Jan 2019, 19:09
The suffrage issue should become bigger over time, though. After all, I can't imagine the gerrymandered Prussian voting system surviving indefinitely. I'll use the U.S. as an example--while rural areas were overrepresented in state legislatures before the 1960s, the public refused to tolerate this problem forever--which resulted in pressure on the U.S. Supreme Court to implement the "one person, one vote" rule and require equipopulous districts everywhere other than the U.S. Senate. Similarly, in Britain, the rotten boroughs were abolished in 1832 and the suffrage was gradually expanded in the 19th and early 20th centuries to include more and more people. I suspect that something similar would have happened in Imperial Germany over time even without the World Wars.
It's important to note the Reynolds v. Sims ruling came at the peak of Post-World War II Liberalism in the United States, something that was not universal around the world even then and was a rather specific set of circumstances to the American political culture. A lot of the movement on restricting urban influence was born in the 1920s, when the ratio of urban to rural surpassed 50-50. Imperial Germany was indeed a very different political culture, with very different standards; it remained more rural than the United States for longer and overall had a more conservative political climate. We must also remember that-in both Germany and in Russia-the capacity to accept non-democratic regimes was strong in the 20th Century.
AFAIK, some of the rural imbalance in the US existed way before the 1920s. For instance, I think that Alabama's constitution since the beginning of its statehood gave an equal number of seats in its state senate to every single one of its counties.

As for imperial Germany, I'm not sure that it was significantly more rural than the U.S. was in the early 20th century. In 1910, 40% of Germans lived in places with less than 2,000 people:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanizat ... man_Empire

Meanwhile, in the U.S., a slight majority of the total population lived in places with 2,500 or more people in 1920:

https://books.google.com/books?id=qn83A ... 20&f=false

Thus, while we can't do a direct comparison because the data is a bit different, it does appear that Germany and the U.S. were roughly equal in regards to urbanization in the early 20th century.

Also, didn't German Kaiser Wilhelm II promise to reform the German/Prussian voting system in 1917 due to his belief that it would be unfair for millions of Germans who fought for Germany in WWI to be treated unequally when it comes to voting?
Also, by the start of WWI, literacy in the Russian Empire was likely approaching 70% among the younger generation. Almost 70% of conscripts to the Russian Army/military were literate in 1913:

https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/925725637104558085

Thus, Germany's potential to Germanize large numbers of Slavs by introducing them to literacy via the German language appears to have been rather limited by the time of World War I.
Any other sources on this? It's news to me and I think could be useful on issues related to this subject in future debates?
[/quote]

I've asked Anatoly Karlin (the blogger who posted that graph) for a source for this graph. Let's hope that he'll respond to me.

Also, I've asked for a copy of a 1942 article about historical Russian literacy on the Wikipedia Resource Exchange/Resource Request desk:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... _in_Russia

Apparently, the author of that 1942 article (Nicholas Timasheff) concluded based on his research that 41% of the population of Imperial Russia was literate in 1914 (with this figure almost certainly being higher among the younger age cohorts) and that the most literate age group in the Imperial Russian population during this time was the one which was born between 1901 and 1906 and thus entered school right before WWI and the disturbances that it and the Russian Civil War unleashed:

https://books.google.com/books?id=Kq00D ... cy&f=false

The claim that Russia was overwhelmingly illiterate in 1914 appears to be a Bolshevik myth. This was true of 1897, but was almost certainly much less true of 1914.

Anyway, I'll let you know if I'll receive any additional information and sources in regards to this. :)

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Re: What is the largest that Germany can realistically become?

#35

Post by South » 26 Jan 2019, 02:38

Good evening Futurist,

To review; I was addressing "Communism and WWII hurt the ex-USSR countries more than Germany".

Germany was defeated and devastated. It was divided. West Germany did not regain sovereignty until 1957 (I believe it was '57). The US had political control over all matters of reunification and the status of Berlin.

........

Stalin's USSR assigned different values than the Atlantic Alliance as to casualties.

Does the Germany you mention have a viable defense budget ?

Back to the quote I was addressing; It was the Third Reich that was defeated.

~ Bob
eastern Virginia, USA

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Re: What is the largest that Germany can realistically become?

#36

Post by wm » 26 Jan 2019, 02:54

Of course the ex-USSR countries lost, here is a comparison between Germany (blue), East European countries (red), (former) USSR (yellow):
germany.jpg
germany.jpg (22.9 KiB) Viewed 1572 times

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Re: What is the largest that Germany can realistically become?

#37

Post by Futurist » 26 Jan 2019, 03:34

wm wrote:
26 Jan 2019, 02:54
Of course the ex-USSR countries lost, here is a comparison between Germany (blue), East European countries (red), (former) USSR (yellow):
germany.jpg
That's their GDP per capita, correct?

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Re: What is the largest that Germany can realistically become?

#38

Post by wm » 26 Jan 2019, 03:43

Yes, and from the Maddison Project database.

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Re: What is the largest that Germany can realistically become?

#39

Post by Futurist » 26 Jan 2019, 04:32

wm wrote:
26 Jan 2019, 03:43
Yes, and from the Maddison Project database.
OK.

Also, did you make that graph by yourself?

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Re: What is the largest that Germany can realistically become?

#40

Post by South » 26 Jan 2019, 12:46

Good morning Wm,

I'm comparing the Third Reich; not the West Germany of the Atlantic Alliance in 1985.

After the defeat of the Third Reich, for example, the Soviets stripped Austria of everything from kitchen sinks in homes to everything in a factory that could be hauled away. Some of these defeated Third Reich defeated establishment members faced a tribunal.


~ Bob
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Re: What is the largest that Germany can realistically become?

#41

Post by wm » 26 Jan 2019, 13:14

Well, Germany is the successor state of the Third Reich. The graph above shows that Germany lost 50 percent of its "value" in 1945.


Futurist wrote:
26 Jan 2019, 04:32
Also, did you make that graph by yourself?
Yes, it's easy in Excel or LibreOffice.

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RE: What Is The Largest That Germany Can "REALISTICALLY" Become?

#42

Post by Robert Rojas » 26 Jan 2019, 16:51

Greetings to both citizen 'wm' and the community as a whole. Howdy 'wm'! Well sir, in respect to your posting of Saturday - January 26, 2019 - 3:14am, at the risk of old yours truly being accused of silly nitpicking, by definition, there was no formally recognized successor GERMAN NATIONAL GOVERNMENT after the unconditional surrender of the Third Reich on May 08, 1945. The nonsense that was Flensburg Government of Grand Admiral Karl Dörnitz between May 01, 1945 and May 23, 1945 notwithstanding, there would be no assemblance of a GERMAN NATIONAL GOVERNMENT or GOVERNMENTS until the advent of the Federal Republic of Germany on May 23, 1949 AND the advent of the German Democratic Republic on October 07, 1949. So, for a period of roughly four years, the surviving burghers of the Fatherland were governed by the military authority of the occupying power that held jurisdictional sway over their particular region of conquered Germany. In light of all of that, which incarnation of a reconstituted Germany would be considered the potential successor state to the now defunct Third Reich - IF ANY!? It's just something to consider. Well, that's my latest two cents, centimes, pence or kopecks worth on this expansive exercise into statecraft - for now anyway. As always, I would like to bid you an especially copacetic day over in the ever enduring land of Poland.

Best Regards,
Uncle Bob :idea: :|
"It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it" - Robert E. Lee

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Re: What is the largest that Germany can realistically become?

#43

Post by Futurist » 01 Jan 2020, 09:34

@History Learner: It's worth noting that Anatoly Karlin provided the source for the historical literacy rates for Russian conscripts here:

https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread ... nt-3032787

This source itself is in Russian but you can use Google Translate to read it:

http://istmat.info/node/86#_ednref36

21.4% of Russian conscripts were literate in 1874, a figure that increased to 49.0% by 1900 and to 67.8% by 1913.

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Re: What is the largest that Germany can realistically become?

#44

Post by Futurist » 01 Jan 2020, 09:38

South wrote:
26 Jan 2019, 02:06
Good evening Wm,

Futurist explicitly referenced the Third Reich Germany and the former SSRs of the USSR. Otherwise, I'd have used the Mongolian People's Republic in my reply to Futurist. Ulan Bator didn't fare too badly after WWII - because it didn't start too well off pre-war.

Actually, it's NOT sufficient to compare GDP of a socialist economic state with a non-socialist state (Completely agree; Spain was a mess until they adopted some market economics.

Not to refute Futurist's point now, but rather to illustrate the "apples and oranges" not allowing a real comparison, here's a letter to the editor:

All within the dashed lines are an exact quote.

=================================

In 1968, as director of the Czech-Slovak State Bank, I made a study of effective outlays for military purposes. Since the method of national account ing used was actually introduced in Czechoslovakia by Soviet experts, it can be assumed that what we found applies with equal force to the Soviet system.

Our study concluded that what was actually allocated to the military was more than three times the formal military budget. We found, for instance, that the costs of transportation, oil, gasoline, food, etc., were far cheaper for the military than for civilian consumers or producers.

Eugen Loehl
New York

================================

Above letter in the 28 March 1977 BUSINESS WEEK Magazine

..............

Back to Futurist's point; West Germany received some Marshall Plan assistance and also some military protection assistance. This must be incorporated into the politico-economic picture presented by Futurist.


~ Bob
eastern Virginia, USA
FWIW, I wasn't only talking about economics here; rather, I was also talking about demographics here. For instance, in WWII, the Soviet Union suffered much higher demographic losses--especially among its male cohorts--than Germany did:

Image

https://www.unz.com/akarlin/russias-mil ... w-puzzles/

Image

You can also see in the graph above that Russia experienced much more severe shortages of males relative to females at various ages in 1959 than even the two Germanies did during this time.

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Re: What is the largest that Germany can realistically become?

#45

Post by ArmchairSamurai » 03 Jan 2020, 06:03

Hello Futurist and others.
I am not here to debate anyone, merely to make a quick suggestion for the OP.
I scanned through the post for any mention of the United Baltic Duchy, but alas, no one seems to have touched on it. Such a tributary state would make a nice addition to Grossdeutchsland (had it ever existed).
There are three sorts of people; those who are alive, those who are dead, and those who are at sea.

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