Germany | Bureaucracy and Militarism

Everyone knows how notoriously awful the German paper bureaucracy is. It's a stereotype, but it is also a stereotype based on facts and truth. The German state bureaucracy is horribly tedious to navigate. In these two videos I would like to explore where it came from. Together with another famous German institution, militarism. Which famously drove Germany into two world wars. I would like to also show you where German militarism came from, and how it ultimately destroyed itself and was replaced by a Republic.

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[lorf]

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.

[DirtyMuzzie]

"I can't believe these people i conquered aren't happy" is the most french thing I've ever heard

[CyberRager]

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

[brianrose]

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.

[jeskcjg]

Germany - from decentralized mess to totalitarian nightmare to bureocratic paralysis.

What a ride.

[ostiedestrie]

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.

[blackwingedangel]

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.

[myakodtenma]

And here i thought i was gonna study for my Eletronics exam, oh well....

[mrgopnik]

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.

[DxBlackDevilxD]

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.

[vidyasreeram]

Petition for the return of the 3 hour video format

[Pioneer_DE]

0:07 Im happy to know that the french have quite some self-awareness about themselves ;)

[Skyrimfan]

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.

[the_feedle]

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

[MingerJerome]

Kraut PLEASE present and cite your sources

[MorphingReality]

never thought i'd be excited to learn about bureaucracy but here we are

[knorkeundso]

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.

[FeldiArts]

I have yet to loose more sanity on something like I did on german beurocracy.

[kieranking]

Hi Kraut. Would you consider listing and publishing your sources for these videos in the description? Thanks for the consideration!

[nicolasmarazuela]

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.