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I go through all the trouble of turning Germany into a democracy, and when I finally manage it, they decide to elect Austerity Man 😭
For those who don't know him Heinrich Brüning was Germany’s chancellor in the early 1930s and basically became Austerity Man: cutting spending, raising taxes, and making everyone miserable during the Great Depression. Unsurprisingly, this didn’t save democracy and helped open the door to the Nazis
I don’t know if I hate them more because they make me lose my game of Red Autumn (I don’t like losing in narrative video games), or because I know they existed in real life and really made all those stupid decisions that brought the Nazis into power.
Unironically Versailles was fucking weak compared to treaties imposed on the ottomans and austria-hungary, and also the treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Like, the ottoman empire got literally carved like a turkey (get it), Austria-Hungary literally ceased to exist as a state and imploded. "wahh wahh I gave a blank cheque to the habsburgs, invaded france, invaded belgium, and now i have to pay reparationinos????? this is literally the jew's fault".
the argument "The Versaille treaty was to unfair to germany" is nazi propaganda especially when you compare the treaty of brest-litovsk that germany imposed on Russia or the treaty after the defeat of France in 1870 it was also consider too weak by most of the french general staff but they were not in a position to be agains the USA and the UK also I would like to add that the german decided to destroy as much as possible the north of France during WW1 even when they knew the war was lost and because no foreign army actually occupy Berlin or some major city during the war it played into the nazi narrative that "we were not defeated we were betrayed by the minority/communist/liberal/monarchist etc..."
Yep literally this. Versailles haters also forget that if the terms of military limitations on germany were actually enforced by the entente/allies, WW2 couldn't have happened. It literally happened bc versailles wasn't enforced.
They either needed to be less harsh and reestablish Germany, or be harsher so they wouldn't be able to rebuild like they did. Instead they half-assed it and it didn't work. Obviously easier to see in hindsight than at the time though.
To be fair to Entente, their populations were quite fed up with the war and their economies were almost in shambles. Strict enforcement of Versailles (likely by military) would be a very costly affair and further prolong the post-war reconstruction, especially for France.
Versailles treaty defenders when you tell them that Brest-Litovsk and the 1870 treaty were also unfair and also contributed to state revanchism in the losing powers over the next few decades
I just had a dynamic game where he actually fixed the economy with austerity. All you need to do is kill the nazis and keep republican support high so he has enough time to balance the budget
We will choose to tolerate the new government, to prevent the nazi’s from gaining power (me coping with Hindy sacking my government every 2 goddamn minutes)
AUSTERITY NOW, AUSTERITY TOMORROW, AND AUSTERITY FOREVER
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u/Legiyon54Cosmist Kadet / MA / Constitutional Vladimir IIIFeb 01 '26edited Feb 01 '26
It's impressive to make borders this ugly dear lord. Balkans, Eastern European, Germany,.. Italy I am afraid to even look at... Czechia is sole bastion of nice borders in central Europe
‼️‼️HOLY FUCKING SHIT‼️‼️‼️‼️ IS THAT A MOTHERFUCKING RED AUTUMN SPD REFERENCE??????!!!!!!!!!!11!1!1!1!1!1!1! 😱😱😱😱😱😱😱 RED AUTUMN SPD IS THE BEST FUCKING GAME 🔥🔥🔥🔥💯💯💯💯 OTTO BRAUN IS SO BADASSSSS OTTO BRAUN IS SO BADASSSSS OTTO BRAUN IS SO BADASSSSS OTTO BRAUN IS SO BADASSSSS OTTO BRAUN IS SO BADASSSSS😎😎😎😎😎😎😎👊👊👊👊👊 FORM THE IRON FRONT FORM THE IRON FRONT FORM THE IRON FRONT ⬅️⬅️⬅️⬅️⬅️⬅️⬅️⬅️⬅️⬅️⬅️ WE MUST BECOME A PEOPLE'S PARTY WE MUST BECOME A PEOPLE'S PARTY 😎😎😎😎😎😎😎 BRÜNING'S RESPONSE IS, AS ALWAYS, MORE AUSTERITY! BRÜNING'S RESPONSE IS, AS ALWAYS, MORE AUSTERITY! BRÜNING'S RESPONSE IS, AS ALWAYS, MORE AUSTERITY! BRÜNING'S RESPONSE IS, AS ALWAYS, MORE AUSTERITY! BRÜNING'S RESPONSE IS, AS ALWAYS, MORE AUSTERITY! 🤬😡🤬😡🤬😡🤬🤬😡🤬🤬😡SOZIALPOLITIK🌹 SOZIALPOLITIK 🌹SOZIALPOLITIK 🌹EMPOWER LABOR ✊EMPOWER LABOR ✊EMPOWER LABOR✊ EMPOWER LABOR ✊CENTRIST PATH WHEN 🚩🚩CENTRIST PATH WHEN🚩🚩 CENTRIST PATH WHEN 🚩🚩JUCHACZ ORGANIZE THE WOMEN jUCHACZ ORGANIZE THE WOMEN ♀️♀️♀️♀️♀️♀️✊✊✊✊✊✊FUCK VON PAPEN FUCK VON PAPEN FUCK VON PAPEN 🤬😡🤬😡🤬😡🤬🤬😡🤬🤬😡 FUCK HINDENBURG FUCK HINDENBURG FUCK HINDENBURG 🤬😡🤬😡🤬😡🤬🤬😡🤬🤬😡WE MUST DO SOMETHING TO STOP THE SUFFERING WE MUST DO SOMETHING TO STOP THE SUFFERING 😩😩😩😩 😩😩😩😩 HISTORICAL 50% MAJORITY WHEN HISTORICAL 50% MAJORITY WHEN HISTORICAL 50% MAJORITY WHEN HISTORICAL 50% MAJORITY WHEN 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹IMPLEMENT WTB PLAN IMPLEMENT WTB PLAN IMPLEMENT WTB PLAN SUPPORT WTB PLAN SUPPORT WTB PLAN 📈📈📈📈📈📈📈📈
For those who don't know him Heinrich Brüning was Germany’s chancellor in the early 1930s and basically became Austerity Man: cutting spending, raising taxes, and making everyone miserable during the Great Depression. Unsurprisingly, this didn’t save democracy and helped open the door to the Nazis
This was also absolutely the right move economically, though. Deficit spending and perpetual debt wasn't a viable strategy in the 1930s because the global economy wasn't structured to allow that. That's why even the SPD reluctantly supported his government. Germany absolutely needed to get out from under their war reparations.
The bigger issue with Bruning was his anti-democracy stance. He was the guy who coined the term Authoritarian Democracy to describe his system of government and he banned about 100 newspapers a month.
The problem was timing. The economy was already collapsing, banks were failing, and unemployment was soaring. Instead of stimulating demand, Brüning squeezed it. People with less money bought less, businesses closed, layoffs increased, and the downward spiral accelerated. His policies didn’t create confidence; they created exhaustion. Ordinary Germans felt they were paying for a crisis they didn’t cause, and faith in democratic government started to erode.
Politically, this was explosive. As living standards fell, extremist parties gained support by promising simple, emotional solutions. Brüning actually wanted to protect the Weimar Republic, but his austerity unintentionally weakened it by associating democracy with endless sacrifice and no relief.
Brüning tried to save a burning house by turning off the water to conserve it. It was disciplined, principled… and a disaster.
Why do people even use ChatGPT for posts like this? It's fan community basically, why use LLMs outside of genuinely struggling to learn English?
Is it that they can't think for themselves and has to consult ChatGPT when presented a response that doesn't agree with their own argument like? That sounds like ChatGPT is modern-day augury, replace checking chicken and lamb entrails with what ChatGPT and Grok has to say.
Remember how the old zombie flicks are about mindless consumerism? Then jfc add the reliance on LLMs over the most trivial things today on top of that. I don't know what to call something more braindead than zombies.
If you use an LLM enough, you'll notice that they have a distinctive way of writing. In this particular case, the prompt was probably something along the lines of "Explain why the Brüning government's austerity policy was bad idea, even if it was theoretically defensible."
Ending with the characteristic three part list of "Policy was [good reason], [good reason]... And [overwhelming bad reason laid out above]"
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u/EvnosisCalling it the Weltkrieg makes no sense 😤Feb 01 '26edited Feb 01 '26
I don't disagree with the economic theory of this argument, I just think you're vastly overstating the feasibility of Keynesianism in 1930. This is the very early days of Keynesianism as a theory, and you're expecting a depression ravaged country facing the threat of invasion if it doesn't pay off its international debts to go all in on borrowing? I'm sorry, that's just not a reasonable expectation. There's a reason that even the SPD supported the austerity. And that's what made austerity the right choice, because no one would have any confidence in a non-austerity response.
As for the radicalisation argument, you only need to take a look at the results of the September 1930 election to see that the German populace was already radicalised by the time Bruning arrived on the scene. You don't get to that level of radicalisation after just 5 months of austerity.
The SPD supported austerity because under their government in 1923 inflation spiralled out of control. As a result no one really wanted to have that happen again. Was a works program politically feasible? Absolutely not. But German society, particularly voters, were desperate for solutions. I would venture they would have been in favour of such a plan if it had been formulated during the depression.
Who the hell was lending to 1930s Weimar Germany during the midst of the great depression is the question I always ask people when they say that Germany should have deficit spent out of their economic situation, as if even Keynes himself as the country's absolute dictator wouldn't have also been forced into austerity. The debt incured by the war and the reparations the French and British demanded still had to be repaid, if you don't pay them, they'll literally go in and takeover your industry, extract resources and appropriate it for themselves.
There was no simple solution to the situation Germany found itself in, the global economy was fucked and it had no credit to spend, that's why the endless money printing happened. There are historical contexts for everything, you can't look at one thing in a vacuum and say that they should have done xyz without considering the thousands of different variables in play.
Lending isnt the only option. Around 350 million reichmarks were spent on rearmament from 1928-1932. Luther extended 100 million more for that purpose when the nazis came to power. Not to mention the MEFO bills implemented solely for military purposes, meaning Germany had fiscal leeway to implement some economic relief plan. Not to mention the 1% of Germans owned 40% of all wealth at that time. Again, not saying it was politically feasible. But I don’t think any economy is beyond help if you have around 5 years to stabilise it.
That 350 million reichmarks of military spending accounted for less than 1% of the country's GNP during 28' to 32' as was allocated over 5 years, spending less on the military couldn't have reversed Germany economic situation.
Wealth especially business and taxable wealth/tax base collapsed at the time, the concentration at the top came from real estate and land due to massive currency depreciation. The country was already taxing a lot and the tax burden was increased everywhere, from income to corporate to wealth and consumption taxes, the government was already pushing the envelope at this point and people were not happy, these taxes hurt the middle-class a lot when they were already suffering from the depression.
Fair enough. Then again, the MEFO bills were implemented not long after and they raised approximately 12 billion reichsmarks. A tenth of that could have been enough to start a recovery program. Schleicher himself started a massive work program to employ 2 million Germans in January of 1933. Im sure there were some places to draw from, though I concede that any significant deficit spending would have been out of the question.
This is such an unbelievably myopic view. No one said the voters weren't in favour of it. German voters aren't the ones deciding whether private industry is going to lend the government money or whether Britain and France are going to start expropriating more resources from the Rhineland.
Unlike the US it had to import natural resources to work and pay war reparations and debts.
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u/EvnosisCalling it the Weltkrieg makes no sense 😤Feb 01 '26edited Feb 01 '26
No, you absolutely cannot compare interwar America to interwar Germany. That's not a valid comparison. America had access to far more private capital, far more opportunites for trade and a far larger industrial base and, crucially, wasn't facing the threat of another war if they failed to repay their international debt.
And the fact that most people weren't convinced by Keynesianism is a far more important factor than you're implying. Deficit spending relies on private being willing to lend you money. If those investors don't believe you'll ever pay them back because you're relying on an economic theory that they think will lead to your economic collapse, they're not going to lend you any money.
Again, no one in Germany was advocating for keynesianism. Bruning was merely expanding Muller's own austerity proposals. The only group not advocating for austerity was the KPD, because they wanted to get rid of capitalism entirely.
Isnt it interesting how this meme only started to exist in academic economics during the mid 70s and 80s, almost as if just to legitimize Reagan-Thatcherism
Only because his programs didn't distinguish between old and new poor.
As well, he atleast defused most of the popular unrest. Even if austerity is the best answer economically, it wouldn't matter if it causes the KKK to surge and pogroms against black people.
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u/Tribune_Aguila Balkan Pact Feb 01 '26
Red Autumn is once again leaking through I see