So I'm on vacation, and have an idea about a HoI2/RDD German strategy I'd like to test. Unfortunately, I'm two time zones away from my HoI2 computer, but still itching to do something with it. Instead of playing, then, I'm going to begin with the prewar history of Germany, to explain the historical differences.
Until I get there, then, what we have is prologue. Lots o' prologue.
Oh, and FWIW, planned settings are all middle-of-the-road, except for techteam and IC inheritance, which will be on, if I ever get around to, you know, actually getting to playing this.
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Eine Geschichte des Grossdeutsches Reich
A History of the Greater German Empire
Hans Keppler
Gottingen, 1985
Trans. by William Fredlund
Austin, 1995
Translator's Note
Doctor Keppler's classic introductory history to the German Empire has never been properly translated; among many of my colleagues, the idea of translating Keppler has been hotly debated because of the occasional complexity of the German text, which is not always suited to the American reader. Nevertheless, I have decided to embark upon this monumental task for a number of reasons.
First, and perhaps most important, is to dispel many of the war-period myths surrounding the German war machine and to shed light on the inner workings of the German Empire both before and during the wars. The average American reader has, thanks to Hollywood, come to view Germans either as mythic, Teutonic supermen, or as bumbling Bavarian beer-swillers. Because of the Kalter Krieg, very few have had occasion to travel to Germany itself.
Second, Doctor Keppler was among the first historians to have access to primary records of the period. His access to official Kriegsministerium, Schutzstaffel, and Party records was at the time unprecedented, and while many have since mined sources that Keppler lacked access to, his initial notes are in many ways the foundation upon which these later works are built. To paraphrase Newton, if later authors have plumbed deeper, it is because they worked the mines of a giant.
Third, Keppler's German is an excellent introduction to the style of formal German documents, both in the period and today. This style in many ways apes the Kaiserlich period in its formality and ponderousness, tempered by the Party's inimitable, opinionated style. Reading it in translation is therefore a service to the beginning or amateur historian of the period.
Before beginning with Doctor Keppler's work in detail, a word on its author may be required. Hans Keppler was born in 1953 at the Garrison Hospital, Potsdam, to SS General Georg Keppler, who had during the war commanded several SS armored divisions prior to being diagnosed with a brain tumor in 1942. The elder Keppler spent the remainder of the War Period in a series of administrative posts with the SS troop office. He died in 1966, just after his son had been admitted to the SS military academy, the Sepp-Dietrich-Schule in Berlin's Lichterfelde Barracks. Unfortunately, a riding accident in 1957 disqualified Hans Keppler from active service with the military branch of the SS. He studied history at the Party-sponsored university at the school of political instruction (German NaPoLa, for Nationalpolitisch Lehranstalt), NPEA Potsdam, the most central of the Party political schools and therefore the best-equipped. Keppler received his M.A. in 1973, with a thesis on the subject of the transformation of the German military from 1935 to 1940, proceeding on to doctoral studies the next year, with his doctorate in history coming in 1976, continuing his magisterial thesis. Given the paucity of teaching positions in the late 1970s in Germany (to which the present author can attest, as a guest lecturer during the early detente period), it is likely that his father's connections assisted him in finding a teaching position at the non-Party University at Gottingen.
In 1980, he applied to the Chancellory for access to the archives, citing the long lapse of time since the War Period, the spate of wartime leaders' deaths in the late 1960s and early 1970s leading to oral history failing, and the flood of wartime accounts such as Guy Mouminoux's The War Years Remembered, which, while they may accurately portray the individual's experiences, do not give an accurate picture on the larger scale. To his own surprise, he received permission, and began his research. A History of the Greater German Empire is the result.
----
Dedication
For my father, his comrades, and the thousands who shouldered the burdens of returning Germany to greatness.
H. Keppler, 1985
----
Introduction
It is commonplace to begin histories of the Wars by specifying the dire straits in which Germany found itself following the World War; which is to say, the economic and social injustices forced upon Germany by the victorious Allied Powers at Versailles in 1919, and the disastrous consequences of unrestricted capitalism in the Western Powers, which dragged Germany to the precipice of social collapse and beyond at the end of the 1920s. It is equally common to specify that the cure to Germany's ills was the action of a handful of men; namely, the President, Paul von Hindenburg, the Chancellor and Leader of the German Reich, Adolf Hitler, and the Chancellor's associates in the National-Socialist German Worker's Party, in numbers that increase as their significance decreases. Men of this second rank include Heinrich Himmler, Rudolf Hess, and the various now generally nameless ministers of the early Reichsministeries. Names like Raeder, Guderian, Manstein, and Udet joined this first rank as war heroes, but even now awareness of them fades.
However, this view neglects the importance of the vast, faceless bureaucracies over which these men, who have become faceless themselves, presided, and the contributions of an army of engineers and theoreticians directed by these bureaucracies. A comprehensive understanding of the interaction of technology and government in the formative years is beyond the scope of this work, but a basic awareness of the importance of industry and research during the period is vital to understanding Germany's success during the Wars.
As an example, the Air Ministry sponsored an engineer named Zuse in the development of a mechanical computer in the middle of the 1930s; by decade's end, Zuse's Department Z of the Air Ministry was an entire basement floor of the Air Ministry's Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse headquarters. Zuse found himself responsible for projects as diverse as cryptography and airplane-mounted radar. Unfortunately, because of the relation of his work to the safety of the Reich, his work was not made public until very recently, with the public availability of the "Zuse" personal computer.
Documentation is our only guide in instances of this kind, where the principals, because of their natural sense of honor and their restriction by the government, are unable or unwilling to speak about their roles. This makes modern access to government records of paramount importance to the serious historian, and it is upon this new evidence that this history rests.
Until I get there, then, what we have is prologue. Lots o' prologue.
Oh, and FWIW, planned settings are all middle-of-the-road, except for techteam and IC inheritance, which will be on, if I ever get around to, you know, actually getting to playing this.
----
Eine Geschichte des Grossdeutsches Reich
A History of the Greater German Empire
Hans Keppler
Gottingen, 1985
Trans. by William Fredlund
Austin, 1995
Translator's Note
Doctor Keppler's classic introductory history to the German Empire has never been properly translated; among many of my colleagues, the idea of translating Keppler has been hotly debated because of the occasional complexity of the German text, which is not always suited to the American reader. Nevertheless, I have decided to embark upon this monumental task for a number of reasons.
First, and perhaps most important, is to dispel many of the war-period myths surrounding the German war machine and to shed light on the inner workings of the German Empire both before and during the wars. The average American reader has, thanks to Hollywood, come to view Germans either as mythic, Teutonic supermen, or as bumbling Bavarian beer-swillers. Because of the Kalter Krieg, very few have had occasion to travel to Germany itself.
Second, Doctor Keppler was among the first historians to have access to primary records of the period. His access to official Kriegsministerium, Schutzstaffel, and Party records was at the time unprecedented, and while many have since mined sources that Keppler lacked access to, his initial notes are in many ways the foundation upon which these later works are built. To paraphrase Newton, if later authors have plumbed deeper, it is because they worked the mines of a giant.
Third, Keppler's German is an excellent introduction to the style of formal German documents, both in the period and today. This style in many ways apes the Kaiserlich period in its formality and ponderousness, tempered by the Party's inimitable, opinionated style. Reading it in translation is therefore a service to the beginning or amateur historian of the period.
Before beginning with Doctor Keppler's work in detail, a word on its author may be required. Hans Keppler was born in 1953 at the Garrison Hospital, Potsdam, to SS General Georg Keppler, who had during the war commanded several SS armored divisions prior to being diagnosed with a brain tumor in 1942. The elder Keppler spent the remainder of the War Period in a series of administrative posts with the SS troop office. He died in 1966, just after his son had been admitted to the SS military academy, the Sepp-Dietrich-Schule in Berlin's Lichterfelde Barracks. Unfortunately, a riding accident in 1957 disqualified Hans Keppler from active service with the military branch of the SS. He studied history at the Party-sponsored university at the school of political instruction (German NaPoLa, for Nationalpolitisch Lehranstalt), NPEA Potsdam, the most central of the Party political schools and therefore the best-equipped. Keppler received his M.A. in 1973, with a thesis on the subject of the transformation of the German military from 1935 to 1940, proceeding on to doctoral studies the next year, with his doctorate in history coming in 1976, continuing his magisterial thesis. Given the paucity of teaching positions in the late 1970s in Germany (to which the present author can attest, as a guest lecturer during the early detente period), it is likely that his father's connections assisted him in finding a teaching position at the non-Party University at Gottingen.
In 1980, he applied to the Chancellory for access to the archives, citing the long lapse of time since the War Period, the spate of wartime leaders' deaths in the late 1960s and early 1970s leading to oral history failing, and the flood of wartime accounts such as Guy Mouminoux's The War Years Remembered, which, while they may accurately portray the individual's experiences, do not give an accurate picture on the larger scale. To his own surprise, he received permission, and began his research. A History of the Greater German Empire is the result.
----
Dedication
For my father, his comrades, and the thousands who shouldered the burdens of returning Germany to greatness.
H. Keppler, 1985
----
Introduction
It is commonplace to begin histories of the Wars by specifying the dire straits in which Germany found itself following the World War; which is to say, the economic and social injustices forced upon Germany by the victorious Allied Powers at Versailles in 1919, and the disastrous consequences of unrestricted capitalism in the Western Powers, which dragged Germany to the precipice of social collapse and beyond at the end of the 1920s. It is equally common to specify that the cure to Germany's ills was the action of a handful of men; namely, the President, Paul von Hindenburg, the Chancellor and Leader of the German Reich, Adolf Hitler, and the Chancellor's associates in the National-Socialist German Worker's Party, in numbers that increase as their significance decreases. Men of this second rank include Heinrich Himmler, Rudolf Hess, and the various now generally nameless ministers of the early Reichsministeries. Names like Raeder, Guderian, Manstein, and Udet joined this first rank as war heroes, but even now awareness of them fades.
However, this view neglects the importance of the vast, faceless bureaucracies over which these men, who have become faceless themselves, presided, and the contributions of an army of engineers and theoreticians directed by these bureaucracies. A comprehensive understanding of the interaction of technology and government in the formative years is beyond the scope of this work, but a basic awareness of the importance of industry and research during the period is vital to understanding Germany's success during the Wars.
As an example, the Air Ministry sponsored an engineer named Zuse in the development of a mechanical computer in the middle of the 1930s; by decade's end, Zuse's Department Z of the Air Ministry was an entire basement floor of the Air Ministry's Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse headquarters. Zuse found himself responsible for projects as diverse as cryptography and airplane-mounted radar. Unfortunately, because of the relation of his work to the safety of the Reich, his work was not made public until very recently, with the public availability of the "Zuse" personal computer.
Documentation is our only guide in instances of this kind, where the principals, because of their natural sense of honor and their restriction by the government, are unable or unwilling to speak about their roles. This makes modern access to government records of paramount importance to the serious historian, and it is upon this new evidence that this history rests.
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