Was Germany a victim of the big powers of its time or the perpetrator of unprecedented strife in Europe in the period...

Was Germany a victim of the big powers of its time or the perpetrator of unprecedented strife in Europe in the period from 1900 to 1945?

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Literal belligerents.

They had no idea how to do the whole nation thing, so they kept acting like Prussia.

1900 to 1945 was not a good time to act like Prussia.

They were being hotheads.

True, Germany was very new to the unified state thing, unlike France, Britain (mainly England) and the USA. But at the same time they had immense prospects that I can't help but feel the Allies tried to put down in any way possible.

They were a victim of poor leadership in the case of Kaiser Wilhelm II, and stupidity in the case of Hitler.

The problem wasn't so much that they attempted to increase their power, everyone did that.

They just did stupid shit. For example, they really needed to fall into either the Anglo-American camp or the Franco-Russian camp at some point in the early 20th century.

They did neither, and ended up fighting both camps with nobody but Austro-Hungary and the Ottomans.

They also provoked a war with France for literally no reason other than that their war plans expected a war with France, and they brought the UK into the war unnecessarily by invading Belgium, again, due to an unwillingness to adapt operational plans to political reality.

And then Hitler came along, who was an even bigger fuckwit than the Kaiser was.

But couldn't this (romantically) be seen as a struggle for independence from both camps? France, on the other hand, played its cards better and still survives as a moderate power.

FPBP

Germany didn't start WWI but they sure as shit didn't do themselves any favours.

The Kaiser was a literal autist with way too many daddy/mummy/everything issues to be running a country. There's a documentary (BBC I think) called "The Royal Cousins at War" all about him and Nicholas II in the run up to WWI. Watch it if you want to get the full story behind what I'm driving at.

And as rightly points out, Hitler was even more fucking retarded than Wilhelm.II. Nowhere does the principle of "talk shit, get hit" apply more than to Germany in the first half of the 20th century, especially during WWII.

Don't forget Hindenburg. Fucker was a horrible leader during WW1, and then doubled on his shittiness as president, leaving Hitler in power.

Germany was one among many perpetrators.

>Hindenburg
>a horrible leader during WW1
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tannenberg

>Literally slept through the battle
>Had pic related do all the work
>Leader

Belligerent retards who started shit on the basis of thinking they deserved world recognition and a world empire despite not putting in the work for it. Literally 10 years after their formation they're trying to meddle in colonial affairs and acting like they're owed shit in china and the pacific. A nation of insecure, destructive bullies which took the Enlightened and well-governed Brandenburg-Prussia of the 17th/18th centuries and just went off the fucking deep end with some of its principles.

Haters gonna hate. Was a good trip as long as it lasted t.b.h.

Germany has some big potential since 1900 for sure. I just worder their abbility to fuck everything up, if it was purelly a extern manace or if their capacity to progress has some parallel with war culture.

Germany still fucking up today I just can't understand why.

>Germany didn't start WWI but

You can pretty much consider they did though
Austria started a small war in the Balkans, Germany made it a world war

37 days is a good docudrama for explaining how it came to be.
There is no simple answer that satisfies everyone.

Germany wanted to play with the big boys and got itself wrecked, twice.

Literally self-destructive highly functioning autists.

They are great at building up after a crisis, but as soon as everything is well they start to get weird because they suck at keeping the status quo.
Then they let everything burn down and rebuild again

Reducing the causes of ww1 to some direct pre-war events doesn't hold up to the complexity of the political situation.

>le g*rman destroyers of rome and evropa lmao XP

>btw france is peaceful and poland is relevant

First time was justified. Second was literally autist tier.

both France and Poland never wrecked Europe though, they tried to protect it.

Why do germans try so hard to ruin Europe? Is it because they have collective autism and can't stand just having being an irrelevant backwater shithole?

is their addiction to piss porn, scat eating, and zoophilia just never enough?

What is the funniest is that Germans contributed the most to the world when they were pic rel

The unification of Germany was a mistake. It would be much better if they had stayed as small states or simply moved to north africa en masse

Russia and France are equally at fault because Russia had no business meddling in the backyard of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and France had no business backing Russia in their imperial games and provoking this kind of reaction.