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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   28511 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 2, 2024

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More horses than tractors

Do you actually think that counted as backwards and low-tech back then in the European continent?

Welll, what's the point of comparison? Compared to the UK and USA they were decidedly backwards. Compared to Russia and Eastern Europe they were more advanced. Compared to the rest of the continent... I don't know, that's a tough question. Probably not a huge difference, but France and the low countries might have been a bit more advanced since they weren't suffering from WW1 reparations. I know the Germans seized a lot of material from the occupation of those countries, which was absolutely critical for them to keep their war economy going.

At any rate, its important to keep in mind just how pre-modern this country was. It was not, for most average people, a country of cars driving through cities the way Nazi propaganda films made it look. It was a country of people living in rural farms, where they didn't have electricity or radios, and had to take a train to the nearest city if they wanted to watch a news reel.

At any rate, its important to keep in mind just how pre-modern this country was. It was not, for most average people, a country of cars driving through cities the way Nazi propaganda films made it look. It was a country of people living in rural farms, where they didn't have electricity or radios, and had to take a train to the nearest city if they wanted to watch a news reel.

If someone is basing their view of the German tech-level on propaganda and WWII Hollywood action films, I can see why you might want to correct that. But if you fight propaganda with propaganda, you're not going to end up with a more accurate picture of the world, you're going to snap right back around to something just as inaccurate, but from the other side. Like, yeah, people don't understand how pre-modern Germany was, but that's not because of anything specific to Germany, it's because they don't realize how pre-modern the world was at the time.

Compared to the rest of the continent... I don't know, that's a tough question.

Compared to Italy, Spain, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Hungary? Very certainly not.

It was not, for most average people, a country of cars driving through cities the way Nazi propaganda films made it look.

Not even Nazi propaganda films portray it as a country of average people in cars.

Relatively speaking? Yes.

But Europe includes the Mediterranean region, Poland, the Balkans etc. as well.

Fair point, but still. Germany was if not "backwards" at least lagging significantly behind the UK, France, Italy, and the Scandinavian nations on multiple metrics.

One of the reasons so many Chezk guns and Chzek Tanks show up at the battle of France is that they were broadly equivalent if not superior to anything the Germans had been able to produce domestically at the time and unlike the German gear they could be produced in bulk.

One thing I never really appreciated was that the Czech 38(t) chassis was in production right until the end of the war as a tank destroyer and mobile howitzer. I only ever knew it as the best starting tank for a Steel Panthers campaign.

The Germans really snowballed with the diplomatic takeovers right up until poland. Huge value in some of those wins.

The very mundane explanation for that is that after annexing Czechia and Moravia in 1939 the Germans instantly got their hands on enough weaponry of all sorts to equip roughly 45 divisions.

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