Holding Out for a Hero: Gustav Stresemann Survives

[Faeelin]

Originally Posted by stevep

My personal opinion but think the US got itself out of a hole at Washington and realised it.

How so?

However its notorious for being unwilling to make binding commitments in negotiations with other powers, frequently even today.

America's isolationism in this period can be overestimated, especially in terms of utopic "we can make the world better!" treaties. Look at the Kellog-Briand Pact, for instance. A,eroca jad mp desore fpr a ;arge ,o;otaru om tjos [eropd/

Possibly although possibly not. WWII was very destructive, especially in Europe. However it also pushed a lot of technologies and presuaded a lot of people, especially in Europe, that they needed to co-operate.

But the seeds of such cooperation were sown after the Great War. Look at the Kellog-Briand Pact; outlawing the use of poison gas; Locarno, etc.

Even Briand's proposal for an EU...

The world didn't need millions of more people to die for this things to come about, when they were already happening.

Would it have been as slow a ride? Or worked out the same way? Probably not. And in some ways it'd be fairly abhorrent to us. But I don't think that it's inevitable that Europe needed 60 million people to die and the Russiasn in Berlin to talk about European Unification.

[LordInsane]

Originally Posted by Faeelin

A,eroca jad mp desore fpr a ;arge ,o;otaru om tjos [eropd/

Um...

[alt_historian]

Originally Posted by LordInsane

Um...

Well, he was obviously momentarily interrupted by an alien transmission...

[Valdemar II]

Originally Posted by stevep

Possibly although possibly not. WWII was very destructive, especially in Europe. However it also pushed a lot of technologies and presuaded a lot of people, especially in Europe, that they needed to co-operate. For all its flaws the EU has got a fair amount done in terms of pooling resources.

Steve

In all fairness this Germany has size where it can compare with the early EEC in term of population and know-how, and it's a lot close than EU is even today so I think it will have a edge in pooling resources especially with it's growing co-operation with Norden, Benelux and Czechoslovakia, especially because the best and brightest in those countries will travel to Germany to studie, so we will likely get something like the Bologna-agrement 40-50 years earlier, and as a result the universities in this co-operation will be a lot stronger and will likely could effective compete with the Anglosphere (and Francophone) Universities, something it has problem with even today*.

*the vast majority of the best Universities lies in Anglo-Saxon countries today.

[Faeelin]

Originally Posted by LordInsane

Um...

I read the Necronomicon.

C'thulu! aioudf-987324321;lk]ewr!

Okay, more seriously.

I was just pointing out the Kellog-Briand Pact, and America's support for disarmament and bans on chemical weapons.

[stevep]

Originally Posted by Faeelin

How so?

Its 1916 naval programme triggered a naval race, with Japan and potentially with Britain that it lacked the desire to compete in. Also it might have served, under virtually any other circumstance than a war weary Britain, in tightening the Anglo-Japanese alliance and even potentially turned it into what it wasn't, i.e. a defencive alliance against the US.

Not saying that things would have gone disasterously for the US without the treaty. However it greatly helped the US rise to per-eminance that the government in Britain at the time crippled the RN and related industry in the innacurate belief that it was in Britain's interest to have any deal with the US.

America's isolationism in this period can be overestimated, especially in terms of utopic "we can make the world better!" treaties. Look at the Kellog-Briand Pact, for instance. A,eroca jad mp desore fpr a ;arge ,o;otaru om tjos [eropd/

There was a period of utopianistic thought but did they actually amount to anything in reality? No power, except to a limited degree the western democracies, were willing to concede any real power to extra-national bodies.

But the seeds of such cooperation were sown after the Great War. Look at the Kellog-Briand Pact; outlawing the use of poison gas; Locarno, etc.

Even Briand's proposal for an EU...

The world didn't need millions of more people to die for this things to come about, when they were already happening.

Would it have been as slow a ride? Or worked out the same way? Probably not. And in some ways it'd be fairly abhorrent to us. But I don't think that it's inevitable that Europe needed 60 million people to die and the Russiasn in Berlin to talk about European Unification.

I don't think its necessary - i.e. 60 million more dead - but what happened once the economic situation became rocky shows how fragile the desire for a peaceful EU type organisation was. It wasn't just Germany and Russia/USSR that were controlled by despotic and militaristic regiemes. Most of the continent was pretty damned quickly. In your own TL here Strassman is using some fairly nationalistic policies and has put a lot of emphesis on military strength - as to be fair have a number of other states. That might be enough, in TTL, for the close encounter with war, coupled with more moderate governments in the key nations, to both avoid war and shock enough people in power into a more stable peace-keeping system.

Steve

[Faeelin]

Originally Posted by stevep

Its 1916 naval programme triggered a naval race, with Japan and potentially with Britain that it lacked the desire to compete in. Also it might have served, under virtually any other circumstance than a war weary Britain, in tightening the Anglo-Japanese alliance and even potentially turned it into what it wasn't, i.e. a defencive alliance against the US.

Except Britain was broke and couldn't afford a naval race with the US, and so agreed to the treaty. It was a combination of lack of desire with lack of capability, and was remarkably effective.

It's certainly not clear to me how the British crippled industry as a result; given the glut of shipping on the world's markets and Britain's inefficient shipbuilding industry, there bigger problems than lack of a Great White Fleet.

There was a period of utopianistic thought but did they actually amount to anything in reality? No power, except to a limited degree the western democracies, were willing to concede any real power to extra-national bodies.

I would say it depends on what you call a western democracy. Fascist Italy, in the 1920s, respected the League's proposals for the most part; the Germans and Czechs both were actively involved, albeit for their own reason.

I don't think its necessary - i.e. 60 million more dead - but what happened once the economic situation became rocky shows how fragile the desire for a peaceful EU type organisation was. It wasn't just Germany and Russia/USSR that were controlled by despotic and militaristic regiemes. Most of the continent was pretty damned quickly. In your own TL here Strassman is using some fairly nationalistic policies and has put a lot of emphesis on military strength - as to be fair have a number of other states. That might be enough, in TTL, for the close encounter with war, coupled with more moderate governments in the key nations, to both avoid war and shock enough people in power into a more stable peace-keeping system.

Let's hope so; I've decided to write a post on Germans in Poland which is going to be, umm, dark.

[stevep]

Originally Posted by Faeelin

Except Britain was broke and couldn't afford a naval race with the US, and so agreed to the treaty. It was a combination of lack of desire with lack of capability, and was remarkably effective.

No Britain couldn't have stood a major naval race with the US if the US had been willing to engage in one. However considered opinion on a naval board I'm a member of is that the US programme was just about dead in the water anyway due Congressional opposition. However that's rather a moot point. More to the point Britain had already committed itself, quite a while before, to rejecting any policy of considering the US a potential opponent. As such, unless you have some rabid aggressive US developing, the number of capital ships in the US fleet is pretty much irrelevant. Britain could have afforded and actually had budgetted for the 4 G3 fast BBs. The problem was the politicians in Britain, having just fought a long and costly conflict and with many people in western countries associating military spending with the recent conflict, went for a political deal that wasn't in Britain's actual interests. Furthermore, although opinion was drifting against it we sacrificed the alliance with Japan, which greatly worsened our stragetic position.

It's certainly not clear to me how the British crippled industry as a result; given the glut of shipping on the world's markets and Britain's inefficient shipbuilding industry, there bigger problems than lack of a Great White Fleet.

After the completion of the R class BBs in ~1916 the British shipyards completed the Hood and later the Nelson and Rodney, whereas the smaller US industry completed 8 BBs. Britain crippled itself by agreeing to the battleship 'holiday' which meant that important skills and capacity were lost. [Some were carried over until ~1930 due to government subsidy but that was lost when the depression hit]. Furthermore, as the naval officers warned in both 1921 and 1930 when the holiday was extended, this left Britain with a problem of bloc obsolescence as the ships were due to be replaced virtually at the same time. A far more expensive task than steadily replacing units over a period of time, even if the capacity hasn't been lost.

There was a problem in merchant shipping, especially given the US especially continuing to subsidy their less efficient producers. However the British shipyards were by a good way the most efficient, as well as the largest, at the time [i.e. end of WWI]. They continued to be more efficient than their competiers until technological change and the exhaustion of the British economy in WWII. They ended up with the 'White Fleet' problem by agreeing to the treaty. If only for instance the 4 G3's had been constructed then Britain's position, both militarily and to a degree economically would have been vastly improved in the late 30's. [Presuming no dramatic butterflies of course].

[quote]I would say it depends on what you call a western democracy. Fascist Italy, in the 1920s, respected the League's proposals for the most part; the Germans and Czechs both were actively involved, albeit for their own reason.

The League of Nations worked to a limited degree in the 20's while no one objected too strongly to its decisions. However once people started ignoring it you got the problem that while many people wanted peaceful solutions to crisis they had no capacity to prevent more extreme groups imposing their will.

Let's hope so; I've decided to write a post on Germans in Poland which is going to be, umm, dark.

Awaiting with baited breath.

Steve

[Dr. Nodelescu]

Damn, I can't wait. I'm almost shaking because I want to see the next chapter!

[LordInsane]

Bumpiness.
Not, I admit, that I am in a position to call for anything, given the situation for the thing mentioned in my signature...

[Faeelin]

Strangers in a Strange Land

The indignity and menace of Danzig burnt into the German imagination. That Corridor fretted it as nothing else in the peace settlement had fretted it. It became a dominant political issue. There was an open sore of a similar character in Upper Silesia; there was a sore in the Saar Valley; there was the sore of an enforced detachment from Austria; there were many other bitter memories and grievances, but this was so intimate, so close to Berlin, that it obsessed all German life.

Within a dozen years of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles the Polish Corridor was plainly the most dangerous factor in the European situation. It mocked every projection of disarmament. It pointed the hypnotized and impotent statescraft of Europe straight towards a resumption of war.-H.G. Wells, The Shape of Things to Come

Before discussing a plight of Germans in Poland, it is necessary to understand the Polish context. Poland had been ruthlessly conquered by its neighbors in the 18th century, and subjected to Russification and Germanization. The Poles had little reason to love their German neighbors, who restricted the use of Polish, even in Churches, tried to "colonize" Poland, and tried to force children to be educated in German. Before we are too hard on the Polish Republic, it is important to remember that in a sense the Polish state was no worse than Wilhelmine Germany.

Nor was Poland’s German minority made of sweetness and light. National Socialism found a ready home among this minority, who had adopted National Socialist tenets as earlyas 1921, and even after the collapse of the Austrian state it remained a stronghold of Hiterism. The German government was well aware of this, but held its nose and continued to subsidize the German minority political movements in Poland. They were the key, Germany’s leaders were convinced, to fixing the border. Polish fears of the German minority were thus, in some sense, justified. Nevertheless, in this enlightened age we frown upon collective guilt, and such justification must have seemed hollow to the German minority within Poland, who found themselves cut off from all their nation and relegated to second-class status in the land of their birth.

Poland’s painful struggle for independence. augured poorly for future German-Polish ties, as approximately half a million Germans [1] left in the first years of the Polish state’s existence. While there was little official coercion, the new Polish state did little to stop popular manifestations of hostility to Germans, or and over the next several years the state did everything it could, within the bounds of the Minority Treaties, to make Poland’s Germans leave. German professionals, from doctors to notaries, were denied licenses, while the state favored ethnic Poles with whatever advantages it could, such as import licenses and government contracts. [2] As noted previously, land reform favored Poles, and the state repeatedly attacked German minority schools, provided for by League Minority Treaties. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the German minority continued to decline in population, as its members left for the greener pastures of the Reich. Communities with roots stretching back centuries withered away, and it was no wonder that Germany used every means at its disposal to help them.

Glaring across the Vistula: German-Polish Relations and the Minority

____________________________________________

It is important to understand that Berlin’s views of the German minority were not just based on dreams of a revisionist border. To be frank, Berlin’s attitude was at times mercenary; most Germans that left Poland ended up on the dole in Germany, at least for a while; and so it was cheaper to keep them there. Moreover, Germany had a concern for German minorities across Europe, from Estonia to Romania. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that it was Poland which affected Germany the most, and for the most part German-Polish relations had the character of a cold war.

German opinion ranged, for the most part, from hard liners like Von Seeckt who advocated the partition of Poland, to those such as Stresemann who hoped to use economic influence and political pressure to adjust the border. Germany also showed itself willing, throughout the 1920s, to use every means at its disposal to pressure Germany. During the height of the Russo-Polish War, it refused to sell weapons to Poland, and tried to cripple the Polish economy. In 1925 a tariff war that lasted into the 1930s broke out, Germany tried to bring Poland to its knees through economic warfare. Reading the works of those strange and awful days, it seems to the reader as if Poland and Germany were characters in a dark comedy. What is a reader to make, for instance, of a German consul in Poznan advocating that Germany needed to use more forceful measures to humble Poland, as “hatred of Germans is a national religion here”? The German-Polish struggle was petty, interminable, and so tragically typical of the 20th century.

It is worth noting that there were men of courage in both states who wanted to break this cycle of hate and revenge. But they were crippled by domestic constraints. Thus when Germany and Poland negotiated a Liquidation Treaty in 1929, assuring Germans in Poland their property rights in return for a billion marks compensation for claims from the Great War, neither nation’s leaders could get it through their Reichstag. While Stresemann supported it privately, the German right-wing press attacked it as a victory for the hated Polacks, while the much of the Polish press lamented the loss of an opportunity to be rid of thousands of Germans.

It should therefore come as no surprise that the 1930s brought little in the way of change. As a way out of the mess, Stresemann raised the issue of a bilateral German-Polish treaty, whereby each party would grant its minority the same rights the other nation granted its minority. Unfortunately, the Polish government refused to agree in the 1920s and 1930s, citing domestic opposition.

Nevertheless, many Germans in Poland had felt the League had failed, arguing that since Germany had entered the League Germans in Poland had lost 700 schools, 2,700 churches, and 1 million hectares of land. The plight of the German minority can be illustrated by a few examples. A Polish 1936 cabinet resolution proposed that “the general policy with regard to schooling for the German minority should be directed to the gradual limitation of German as the language of instruction”, while the government also cracked down on German evangelical churches. Officials wanted to create a single nationwide Lutheran Church under the state’s control, run under Bishop Bursche, an authoritarian and anti-German ministers, and in 1936 decreed that that Polish would be the official language of Lutheran Churches. [3] While many Germans simply retreated to their homes, where their pastors conducted private services, the long-term outlook remained grim.

We could go on, discussing how German Youth leaders were arrested for hikes that were classified as military activities. Or we could mention how student visas for German students were only available if a particular course wasn’t available in Poland. One could mention how pass ports cost 400 zloty in 1933, as much as a teacher earned in two months. Even when officials admitted that this was unjust, they said they had no choice but to bow to public opinion.

Such public opinion was at its most extreme from the National Democrats, a Polish Political party whose immoderate demands became even more extreme. By 1938 the party was calling for a reduction in the number of German newspapers, a ban on German-language signs over shops, with the restriction of employment to graduates of polish schools. Party members suggested that two-thirds of Germans in Silesia be forced to emigrate, while proposing a boycott of German films and journals.

The German minority’s economic foundation was also attacked. Although the German land reserve in Poznania and Pomorze had fallen to 153,000 hectares by 1936, land reform plans still entailed taking two-thirds of subsequently reformed land from German owners. Officials turned down requests by Germans to buy or lease farms, citing inadequate qualifications of would-be buyers, while the government supported efforts to take over or close German co-operatives. In Silesia the state’s use of economic warfare was even more devastating. The government nationalized the German—owned Pless concern, whose twenty factories and six coal mines made it the largest employer in the region, and proceeded to fire German employees and workers. The League of Nations was force d to admit it was powerless to stop this, and by 1937 the German consul in Katowice complained that 75% of the Germans in Upper Silesia had been deprived of their economic existence.

In addition crippling German agriculture and German industry, Poland supported action against German businesses. Nationalist groups organized pickets in many towns, using physical intimidation to keep Polish customers away from German businesses. According to some accounts, Polish civil servants were urged (or ordered) to shop at polish shops, while the state denied pharmacists, innkeepers, and tobacconists the licenses they needed to operate. In essence, by 1939 the German minority’s economic and social foundations had been shattered by the state, and it seemed to many that it would soon pass away.

The Approach of War

____________________________________________

Given the above information , you can pretty much guess how the Vilnius Dispute effected the minorities. Acts of popular violence increased sharply. German students at Poznan University were barred from classes, while minority leaders were subjected to increased surveillance and their homes and offices were periodically searched. Even speaking German on the street resulted in beatings, while churches stopped holding German-language services to avoid attracting attention. The most serious incident occurred in the industrial town of Tomaszow, where Germans made up 7% of the population. In what organizes billed as a great anti-German demonstration, rioters successfully pressured factories to dismiss German workers, and then, in the words of the German consul, destroyed virtually all German private property in town and then killed two Germans while the police did nothing or marched with them. [4]

Moreover, the fires of revisionism were stoked in Poland as well as Germany. The Polish far-right urged that the government speed East Prussia’s fall to Poland by cutting off trade, while others claimed that Poland must regain its “ancestral lands” of Silesia, Pomerania, and East Prussia. Just as Germans patronized institutes devoted to dominating Europe, so Poles supported the Baltic Institute, the Silesian Institute, and others that whet appetites for conquest. [5]

While the Polish government did condemn such outbreaks of popular violence, they rationalized the actions of the perpetrators and rarely pressed serious charges. Minority newspapers, of course, were forbidden from reporting on such incidents, but if the German media, both the RKA and right-wing press, played up such incidents at home and abroad. In private memoranda to the German Foreign Office, minority leaders warned that the German minority within Poland would soon be eliminated, and that unless something was done, the German minority would be eliminated.

Whoever commits himself to the idea that human rights of language, race, and religion should be respected and honored despite state boundaries speaks up for the preservation of peace. Peace among peoples will be all the more secure the less often the cries of minorities whose cultural survival is threatened reach the public. That assumes, however, that the leaders of the minority states will let themselves be persuaded that it accords with the most fundamental interests of the state when it seeks a positive, legal solution to the minority question within its boundaries.

-Gustav Stresemann.

[1] I just chose the middle estimate of the population that left, for the record.

The German interwar, for obvious reasons, has been viewed in a less pitiable right than, say, the Belorussians and such in Interwar Poland, but it's a very fascinating and depressing subject.

[2] There’s been an interesting comparison of the German flight to that of the French settlers in Algeria, actually, in Orphans of Versailles.

[3] Sadly, this is true.

[4] See 3.

[5]To be fair, this ended up working. Thus, despite the AWESOME L33T WERMACHT, Breslau is kaput.

[Magnificate]

This is both interesting and important subject, so allow me to nitpick a little:

The Poles had little reason to love their German neighbors, who restricted the use of Polish, even in Churches, tried to "colonize" Poland, and tried to force children to be educated in German

Why is "colonize" in the quotation mark?

During the height of the Russo-Polish War, it refused to sell weapons to Poland

The fact that Germany refused to transit French weapons through their territory was more important than not selling weapons.

Germany also showed itself willing, throughout the 1920s, to use every means at its disposal to pressure Germany.

Most probably a misprint.

neither nation’s leaders could get it through their Reichstag.

Polish equivalent of Reichstag is called Sejm. IMHO in this context you should either use both names or simply write "parliaments".

So other than increased tension no serious incident happened?

Overall this installment does a great job in setting a dark and grim atmosphere, which is even more magnified by the fact that ITTL there are no Nazi policies to compare Polish policies to. Consider that ITTL students of history might be under the impression that it were mainly Germans that were the victims of Polish oppression, not the other way around. Scary!

[LordInsane]

Quite scary. It makes sense how the Poles would follow more-or-less the same policies even with a less oppressive Germany on the other side of the border- but here, as Magnificate says, there is no Nazi Germany to show just how much worse it could be.
And, of course, without the guilt for the Nazis, Germans would probably be more willing to raise the issue of wrong-doing done against them instead of by them, which, coupled with a probably slightly more German-influenced Europe, might well give raise to

ITTL students of history might be under the impression that it were mainly Germans that were the victims of Polish oppression, not the other way around

[Faeelin]

Originally Posted by Magnificate

Why is "colonize" in the quotation mark?

Because to me colonization gives a mental image of verdant and empty lands, which Poland obviously wasn't. But ethnic cleansing isn't appropriate either. Hrmm.

The fact that Germany refused to transit French weapons through their territory was more important than not selling weapons.

Aye, true; but this was mainly prevalent in Danzig.

So other than increased tension no serious incident happened?

I fixed the typos; there was the incident at Tomaszow, but nothing much. Yet.

Overall this installment does a great job in setting a dark and grim atmosphere, which is even more magnified by the fact that ITTL there are no Nazi policies to compare Polish policies to. Consider that ITTL students of history might be under the impression that it were mainly Germans that were the victims of Polish oppression, not the other way around. Scary!

Would they be wrong to thing so, at least in the interwar area? There were reasons that most of France's leadership was willing to sell Poland down the river and publically state they wanted the border revised, and the treatment of ethnic minorites (from Germans to Jews) was part of it.

[Magnificate]

Originally Posted by Faeelin

Because to me colonization gives a mental image of verdant and empty lands, which Poland obviously wasn't. But ethnic cleansing isn't appropriate either. Hrmm.

I understand. In Poland we use often use the term "osadnictwo" (settlement) in this context. However it also might not be the best word.

Would they be wrong to thing so, at least in the interwar area?

If we consider the whole of modern German-Polish history in both OTL and ATL then it is my opinion that undoutebly Germans opressed Poles more than Poles opressed Germans. Yet, in the Interwar period itself opression of Poles in Germany is less prevalent by the virtue of the fact that most Polish lands were not under German control at the time. I'd have to think more before I can fully answer this question.

[Valdemar II]

Originally Posted by maverick

Damn...I think I'll be rooting for the Germans now...

Go! Reichswehr!

The problem is how Germany is going to treat the Poles in the conquered area after a potential war, especially the one who have settled there since 1918, I imagine that post will be "deported", together with some of early population, who has had part in the attacks on the minorities, I think post-war, many Poles will "discover" a German or a Kashnubian grandparent to integrate into those groups and to avoid being ethnic cleansed, beside that I think we will se a lot of "population transfer" between Germany, Lithuania and Poland.

[Susano]

Probably. OTOH, postwar Poland already has seen a great deal of "population transfers", so in large parts it would just be undoing that.

[Magnificate]

Originally Posted by Susano

Probably. OTOH, postwar Poland already has seen a great deal of "population transfers”

"Population transfer" is a very misleading word in this context. Contrary to post-WWII situation, when Soviets decided to forcibly relocate Germans and bring Poles in their place, what occurred after WWI is more adequately described as mass emigration. German citizens of those territories suddenly found themselves in a very unfavorable economical and political situation and so were pressured to leave.

so in large parts it would just be undoing that.

And after that we will wait another 10, 25 or 100 years to undo this German resettlement. Unless something radical is done this will only sow the seeds of future conflict.

The problem bogs to the question: “When can a conquered land be considered rightfully belonging to the conqueror?”. After signing the peace treaty? After 10, 50 or 500 years? After the whole indigenous population is relocated, assimilated or cleansed? After mayor powers of the world said so? Never?

[Faeelin]

Originally Posted by Valdemar II

The problem is how Germany is going to treat the Poles in the conquered area after a potential war, especially the one who have settled there since 1918, I imagine that post will be "deported", together with some of early population, who has had part in the attacks on the minorities, I think post-war, many Poles will "discover" a German or a Kashnubian grandparent to integrate into those groups and to avoid being ethnic cleansed, beside that I think we will se a lot of "population transfer" between Germany, Lithuania and Poland.

It's interesting. Stresemann was happy to put in shiny happy minority legislation before taking areas with significant ethnic minorities; what would he do here?

Repatriation? Oh, yea, that'll work real well.

What I find interesting about the TL is that thus far I've found all the sides sympathetic to one degree or another.

[Susano]

Originally Posted by Magnificate

"Population transfer" is a very misleading word in this context. Contrary to post-WWII situation, when Soviets decided to forcibly relocate Germans and bring Poles in their place, what occurred after WWI is more adequately described as mass emigration. German citizens of those territories suddenly found themselves in a very unfavorable economical and political situation and so were pressured to leave.

Which in large parts was not circumstancial, but intentional by the Polish government.

I do agree that a mass ethnic cleansing would just sow further conflict - to not speak of how immoral it would be. However, if only those Poles are repatriated who have come to the annexed areas after 1919... that would be no mass ethnic cleansing, and indeed didnt Versailles have a similar clause about Germans having moved to those regions after... uh, 1908 it was I think, but Im not sure...