"Ancient Origins" Praises Genocidal Hohenzollern Dynasty, Dismisses Democracy

4/23/2020

As we continue to wade through a fallow period due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, I am consequently cutting back the length of my blog posts until there is something more substantive to write about. As a reminder, the finale of Rob Riggle: Global Investigator is scheduled to run overnight tonight, so my review will run later on Friday than my usual posting time, after I have had a chance to watch it.

In the meantime, I want to point out an unusual article that Ancient Origins ran this week. We’ve discussed many times the fact that the site has danced around white nationalist content by highlighting and celebrating themes and issues of special interest to white nationalists. This week they ran a piece by Aleska Vučković glorifying the Hohenzollern dynasty, whose members ruled over Brandenburg, Prussia, and the German Empire of 1871. The writer literally calls them “glorious.”

It goes without saying that the line of imperial Germans was not glorious in any normal sense. The Hohenzollerns presided over a colonial empire of exceptional cruelty, the third largest overseas European empire. The Germans implemented precepts based on Social Darwinism, engaged in genocidal practices and violent atrocities against the peoples they ruled, and conducted horrific medical experiments on subject populations.

The last Hohenzollern emperor, Wilhelm II, presided over Germany’s bellicose response to World War I, and did more than any other world power to turn the July Crisis of 1914 into a war that destroyed so much and so many, the deadliest in history to that time.

After being deposed, Wilhelm supported Hitler and lived to take the salute of Nazi soldiers invading his home in exile in the Netherlands. His son gave his support to Hitler and sought the Nazis’ help in rehabilitating the dynasty’s image and recouping its former assets.

So how does Ancient Origins describe this? By seemingly praising Hitler:

This line of emperors would cease soon after [1871], when Wilhelm II, the last German Emperor, abdicated shortly before the end of the World War I. This was the result of the German Revolution of 1918, after which the royal family was abolished, and the emperor forced to abdicate. The empire was gone and was followed by the creation of the Weimar Republic in 1918, with which Germany was plunged into a whirlwind of instability, unemployment and the great depression – all of which was remedied in drastic fashion with the rise of Hitler as the new chancellor, in 1933.

Ah, that Hitler! Say what you will about his outbursts and erratic behavior. He’s great for the economy! Does anyone actually read the tripe they publish? The author of the piece is Eastern European, so some linguistic confusion may be involved, but the clear thrust of the piece is to praise authoritarians over democrats.

The article ends with the hope that Europe will restore its monarchs, and the author seems to have a quite negative view of democracy.

Good to know Ancient Origins is interested in promoting authoritarianism.

39 Comments

Nick Danger

4/23/2020 09:10:24 am

"Say what you will about his outbursts and erratic behavior. He’s great for the economy!"

Sound like anybody else we know?

Jim

4/23/2020 10:04:06 am

In all fairness to Hitler, he was great for Germany's economy.

Anybody else we know,,,, not so much.

LeifFraNorden

4/24/2020 06:52:14 pm

Not so! See Adam Tooze’s study: ‘The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy’. Tooze provides conclusive evidence that the German economy was a basket case throughout the Hitler era, due largely to Hitler’s economic mismanagement. Tooze argues that Hitler’s legitimate fear of a total economic collapse pushed him to invade Poland in 1939 and Russia in 1941.

My German relatives expressed it this way: After Hitler took over, we had money to spend for the first time in 20 years. But when we went shopping, the shelves were unfortunately all empty.

Machala

4/23/2020 12:32:34 pm

From the Hohenstaufen to the Hohenzollern Dynasties, from the Welfs and Whittins, the Billungs and Battenbergs, Germany's ruling families have been a blood-thirsty lot, rivaling any of their European counterparts for ruthlessness and avarice.
I doubt that any but the most fanatic royalist would wish to see a return of the familiar dynasties to rule Europe.
Even the British Royals, the Mountbatten-Windsors - Mountbatten is a branch of the German Battengberg family and House of Windsor were originally House of Hanover and House of Saxe Coburg & Gotha until WWI when it became politically expedient to change to a more English sounding name - are the last of the great dynastic dinosaurs and if their power, prestige, and wealth is on the wane.

Bezalel

4/23/2020 09:52:11 pm

"...all of which was remedied in drastic fashion with the rise of Hitler as the new chancellor, in 1933."

Hitler was a brazenly horrific tyrant (not to mention his minion Goebbels) but I don't think the above is necessarily intended as praise, you're perhaps reading too much into it (hindsight bias much?)

Anyone who studies the period in depth will see that Hitler was the inevitable German solution and response to their loss after WW1 and Versailles.
Good solution? No. Horrific solution.
Hitler's scheme would not have been successful without his July 1933 concordat with the holy Roman Catholic Church, fascists to the core.

He practically worshipped the structure and methods of the Jesuits, who publish Civilta Cattlolica. In post WW2 June 1948 (hardly medieval) an article within asserted:

"The Roman Catholic Church…must demand the right of freedom FOR HERSELF ALONE because such a right can only be possessed by truth never by error… Consequently in a state where the majority of the people are Catholic the Church will require that legal existence be denied to error…" (emphasis added by Bezalel)

Hannah Arendt cringed.

Unbelievable that some still give ANY credibility to either Hitler or the Church hierarchy, some within the latter continue to spit and gnash against true individual religious freedom.

Christine Erikson

4/26/2020 02:58:23 pm

the whole new ge whatnot crew seem to have the same attitude, ditto lamestream media, they want to suppress what they deem is "error" usually with financial and power interests at play.

4/26/2020 11:41:28 pm

Regarding so called "new age" and media:
Absolutely positively no comparison to the Catholic Church, which has been throwing their weight around like Godzilla for over 1500 years.

The Catholic Church is actually a SOVEREIGN NATION (granted by Mussolini) do you have any idea what kind of atrocity that status is for a religion to posses in the world?

No other religion has this. Not even close

The Catholic Church uses its unwarranted dual status as a nation and as a religion to protect itself from all the atrocities it's been involved in throughout history and continuing to this day...
and to put high level political pressure on other nations to essentially remove human rights at the legal level.
It's abhorrent, unprecedented and pornographically pernicious.

No religious tyranny should have this level of protection.

Kent

4/27/2020 08:21:51 pm

Israel much? A country which is actively involved in oppressing the former inhabitants, but if you're religious enough you don't have to do the mandatory military service. Sell U.S. secrets to the Russians (Pollard), no problem. Give South Africa atomic weapons, no problem. Attempt to assassinate a U.S. President (Truman), no problem. Then there's the U.S.S. Liberty, which everyone seems to feel was a gimme.

4/23/2020 11:55:13 pm

There's so much to know about WWII, and it starts with WWI, which starts earlier.

Hitler wanted peace, or at least not quite war. Churchill and Roosevelt wanted war. Even WWI was started by behind the scenes machinations.

Thank the good Lord that we're not at war in Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria.

4/24/2020 11:49:08 am

"...and it starts with WWI, which starts earlier."

Lots of truthiness in there
Central banks make shit-tons of cash when wars get going don't they?

Sergeant Schultz

4/24/2020 12:50:08 pm

You can take it all the way back to different branches of the Franks quarreling or the Teutonic Crusades if you want. Such logic, however, has a tendency to cloud the understanding of why modern conflicts actually occurred.

4/24/2020 04:57:12 pm

You do know that what you see at Auschwitz today is a Soviet era theme park, right?

Darold knowles

4/24/2020 02:52:33 pm

“Hitler wanted peace, or at least not quite war.”

Some 1.5 million German troops invaded Poland all along its 1,750-mile border with German-controlled territory. Simultaneously, the German Luftwaffe bombed Polish airfields, and German warships and U-boats attacked Polish naval forces in the Baltic Sea.

4/24/2020 06:52:54 pm

And your point is?

"But when we do it it's because peace!"

4/24/2020 08:44:52 pm

“Not quite war”:

On 22 August, just over a week before the onset of war, Hitler delivered a speech to his military commanders at the Obersalzberg:

“The object of the war is … physically to destroy the enemy. That is why I have prepared, for the moment only in the East, my 'Death's Head' formations with orders to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language. Only in this way can we obtain the living space we need.”

I’ll assume that your original statement was meant to be sarcastic, similar to Trump’s remarks about the possibility of people injecting disinfectants into their bodies.

kent

4/24/2020 09:43:35 pm

I await your citation of a source.

4/25/2020 04:03:22 am

Let's never forget the slaughter of British troops at Dunkirk.

4/25/2020 12:04:02 pm

"I await your citation of a source."

Just a helpful tip Kent.

Type "Obersalzberg Speech" into an internet search bar and Bob is your onkel.
(About 545,000 results)

Yer welcome.

Phil

4/25/2020 03:50:26 pm

At least 20 posts by "kent" in the last several days with not a single supporting citation. Now he wants to act like an R/AskHistorians Redditor when dealing with someone that disagrees with him.

4/25/2020 11:18:20 pm

Let's talk about Churchill's campaign of bombing German civilians rather than industrial or military targets. And the time someone grew a pair and said "No, Winnie. No poison gas."

4/26/2020 10:28:45 am

Sure, or we could talk about the rise of the Roman Empire.

4/28/2020 08:39:06 pm

Because there are so many people still alive who lived during the Roman Empire. The war criminal Churchill is still revered by many. It must be getting crowded under that rug... what with all the sweeping.

Mr. Scales had a point about ankle biters.

4/29/2020 07:57:29 am

The Daily Stormer orchestrates what it calls the "Troll Army", which is involved in Internet trolling of figures with whom Anglin disagrees politically."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Stormer

T. Franke link

4/25/2020 06:01:19 pm

"Hitler wanted peace"

Not true. Hitler had the idea of a racial Germanic (not German) empire, ruling over Europe (if not the world). He clearly wanted war, there is no doubt about it. And he started it (together with the Soviet Union against Poland). There were even plans for bombarding New York, e.g. by flying plains into sky scrapers (because the way was too long to fly back).

It was very wise of Churchill to stop him.

4/25/2020 05:53:04 pm

Errr ...... no. This article is so wrong on a factual basis. You don't know where to start ......

=> But I have a guess where these mistakes come from.

Currently, the Hohenzollern family is having a lawsuit against the German state about the restitution of property stolen by the Soviet Union in the Soviet Occupation zone, then restored to Germany in 1990 -- but not to the Hohenzollern family. It really belongs to them, since there was a treaty between the German state and the Hohenzollern family after 1918 about who owns what legitimately. After 30 years of goodwill negotiations, the Hohenzollern started a lawsuit to get back what belongs to them.

But then, German media started a shitstorm against the Hohenzollern familiy, revitalizing every kind prejudice you can imagine. Only 1-2 years ago, I even didn't know and never heard about such accusations and prejudices, but after the lawsuit started, you could not avoid to learn about them.

Some of these prejudices I find here in this article. They must have found their way into English-speaking media.

The Ancient Origins article itself talks about the lawsuit, as I see. And no, I would not say that this article praises Hitler or wishes monarchy back. This is guesswork and exaggerated suspicion if based on this article alone. Hitler remedied these problems indeed, as the articles says, "in drastic fashion". Oh yes, he did, who would deny this. And whether the Hohenzollern will be back on the throne one day is indeed to be seen. You never know which turns history will take. Next station of history will be the break-up of the European Union and the end of the Euro currency. After this, a lot will be possible. We live in interesting times.

Let us hope that democracy will prevail. And by the way: The UK is a monarchy too, and a democracy at the same time. The Hohenzollerns themselves declared a long time ago that this is the only model they would follow. I do not see an anti-democratic appeal in this article, really not, even if it adovacted the return of the Hohenzollerns (what it does not). I personally prefer a republic, just to make this clear, but I do not understand this irrational hatred against the Hohenzollerns. It would be wise to make peace with history and to avoid the propaganda of yesterday.

Concerning the prejudices, let's put it short: Prussia is neither better nor worse than, let's say, Great Britain or France. This includes its dynasty. There is no reason for a special rant against Prussia, Germany and the Hohenzollerns. This article looks like one.

In detail:

- I doubt the the colonial rule of Germany was exceptionally cruel. Surely, there were cruelties. But exceptional? Compared to what? To the UK? To France?! To the Netherlands!?!? Not really.

- I never heard about Social Darwinist policies in Germany before Hitler. Were there any, and were they worse than in other countries of the time?

- There were no genocidal practices in the colonies. There is the incident with General von Trotha's genocidal commands. The German local governor immediately cabled to Berlin about the unexpected genocidal commands by General von Trotha. Berlin immediately revoked these commands, as soon as possible in these times. The German parliament and the public were outraged about these genocidal commands. You have to stretch the definition of genocide to make the idea of genocidal practices true, but if you do so, then you find such practices in all colonial regimes of the time and there again is no reason for any exceptional rant (and why especially against the monarch? Wilhelm II chose the chancellor but he avoided to interfer in details of government, he was a monarch not a dictator, and e.g. the genocidal commands were revoked by the chancellor, as it should be, not by the monarch).

- In the crisis of 1914, Wilhelm II demonstratively went on holidays and did nothing, to ease the tense and to avoid a war. But other forces had other interests. Wilhelm II was the opposite of being bellicose. By the way, the US earned a lot of money with this war, did you know this? And after having stirred up much hope in Europe in 1917, the US left Europe alone after 1918, in a mess. The United States happen to be cruel not by advancing but by withdrawing, time and again.

- "Wilhelm supported Hitler": No. Bullshit. Period.

- His son gave his support to Hitler ...... a grain of truth. Long story. Also in the UK, king Edward VIII supported Hitler. Not as the unimportant son of a de-throned king, but as the king himself. The UK solved the problem by replacing him with another family member. Any reason for a special rant against the Hohenzollern? No.

- Aren't there pictures with today's Queen Elizabeth II as a child showing the Hitler salute? Yes, there are. But what are we allowed to conclude from this? Not too much, I would say.

Baron von Rump

4/25/2020 09:53:01 pm

the Germans were behaving very badly in SW Africa 20 years before von Trotha arrived there and the genocidal war lasted from around 1904 to 1908 so there wasn't an immediate outcry and quick suspension of genocidal warfare.

4/26/2020 11:24:30 am

Baron von Rump,

what is your defnition of genocide? And did the UK or France behave significantly better?

We are not talking about the fact that evil things happend. We are talking about the question whether they justify the word "exceptional".

Does e.g. the following passage about British actions around the same time sound very differently? Quote: "It has been argued that "this was not a deliberately genocidal policy; ... ... ... However, to Kitchener and the British Command "the life or death of the 154,000 Boer and African civilians in the camps rated as an abysmally low priority" against military objectives."
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_concentration_camps

I repeat: Is there any German exceptionality, here? This is the key question. You can easily answer this question with "Yes" for the Holocaust, but we are not talking about the Holocaust.

Colonel Klink

4/26/2020 09:38:07 pm

The Germans probably killed more Herrero in four years than the English and French combined killed Indians in North America in two hundred years. Considering that the Germans colonial era only lasted from about 1880 to 1918 they were quite impressive in their body count when comparing them to other colonial powers that were active on much larger scales for centuries. Spin that as you wish.

4/27/2020 08:50:31 am

Colonel Klink,

let us check your claim.

Let us look at the numbers of countless millions of American Indians killed by France and the UK:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas

Let us take e.g. the Atlantic slave trade, with France and the UK involved, with estimated 4 millions of deaths (not considered the enslavement itself).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade#Human_toll

Or British India: "Between 12 and 29 million Indians died of starvation while it was under the control of the British Empire, as millions of tons of wheat were exported to Britain as famine raged in India."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/worst-atrocities-british-empire-amritsar-boer-war-concentration-camp-mau-mau-a6821756.html

Why not having a look at the Netherlands?
They killed 150,000 in only 5 years, after World War II:
"In all, around 6,000 Dutch soldiers died in the war and at least 150,000 Indonesians were killed."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/colonial-atrocities-explode-myth-of-dutch-tolerance-1439153.html

Now let us compare this to German atrocities in Namibia:
"Between 24,000 and 100,000 Hereros, 10,000 Nama and an unknown number of San died in the genocide".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herero_and_Namaqua_genocide

=> In conclusion, your claim is simply wrong. You have no idea, or you want to spread FAKE NEWS.

Graf Wondershowzen

4/28/2020 10:56:46 am

Sounds like the Dutch had at least one more year to work with than the Germans in southwest Africa. So the Germans still put up an impressive count in only four years, not to mention their activites in other parts of the world. The other nations did bad things over the course of centuries, yes. Doesn't change the fact that Germany did horrendous things in a very short time. Fortunately they got to the colonial game very late and were taken out of it very early.

4/28/2020 05:00:48 pm

Your name is well-chosen: "Wondershowzen".

Because you keep going on with your fairy tales like the famous Baron Münchhausen. See, we Germans were even travelling to the moon long before the Americans ...

"The fictional Baron's exploits, narrated in the first person, focus on his impossible achievements as a sportsman, soldier, and traveller, for instance riding on a cannonball, fighting a forty-foot crocodile, and travelling to the Moon. Intentionally comedic, the stories play on the absurdity and inconsistency of Munchausen's claims, and contain an undercurrent of social satire."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_Munchausen

I wonder where the undercurrent of social satire is in your above hoaxes?

(Alas, the nicest journey to the moon is by Jules Verne .... the Frenchmen did it best!)

Sergeant York

4/29/2020 02:43:57 pm

Germans are happy to take responsibility for WW2. They start to get defensive when you bring up WW1. They go into full denial mode when it comes to colonialism.

This is a silly argument anyway. When it comes to Europeans and colonialism it is like arguing over which of many serial rapists had the fewest victims and is somehow less guilty than others.

4/30/2020 12:01:46 am

American Indians had to be killeditated to make way for the Templar Freemason American Empire. They were all just Orion anyway and killing them simply reenacted the precession of the equinoxes.

Wolter in his Templar Freemason fever dreams never asks the obvious question: Given that all the nonsense he believes is true, shouldn't we be better?

4/30/2020 02:18:40 am

Germans don't get to say "We're not talking about the holocaust" anymore than Americans get to say "We're not talking about slavery" or Israelis get to say "We're not talking about Palestine."

4/30/2020 03:23:22 am

Do you see how Sergeant York subtly distorts and twists the whole argument? Brilliant!

Ah, ah, ah, attendez la creme

4/30/2020 12:03:51 pm

But the English probably did this too and the Israelis are sometimes mean to people now sometimes called Palestininans so it is okay.

https://www.dw.com/en/human-zoos-when-people-were-the-exhibits/a-37748193

4/26/2020 02:50:35 pm

how do you watch all this crap without your brain turning to mush and you landing in a vegetative state in ICU?

4/29/2020 11:16:54 pm

"Well, yes, genocide, but not much, and someone complained about it." It's like a bad parody of Casablanca: Mr. Franke is shocked, simply shocked to find that there's genocide going on. Then plays the et tu quoque card.

As for Americans making the world worse by withdrawing, tell that to the Afghans, the Iraqis and the Syrians. Oh, and Libya where "We came, we saw, he died (cackle!)". Withdrawal would be an act of kindness and a sign of mental health.

4/30/2020 04:58:40 pm

Kent, playing the "tu quoque" card concerning the question of genocide in colonies is exactly NOT what I am doing here. The whole argument is about the question of EXCEPTIONALITY, not about the question of genocide in colonies.

I made clear from the beginning that there were genocidal commands by General von Trotha. You cannot do away with historical responsibility for genocidal events in colonies by "tu quoque".

But what you can do with "tu quoque" is debunking the idea of exceptionality in colonial crimes. And this is exactly what I have done here. There is no exceptionality in German colonial crimes.

As I demonstrated above.