News from Germany: The Competition to Control World Communications, 1900-1945 | Hacker News Reader

News from Germany: The Competition to Control World Communications, 1900-1945

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43 pointsThevet16 comments

It's understandable that we refer to the cold-war when we look at the rivalry between China and the US. For one, it's resembles the most recent conflict between two super-powers, and, for the other, it also carries this notion of capitalism vs socialism on the other.

Yet, I feel this misses the point and, more concerning maybe, also downplays its potential danger to the world. In my opinion, the situation that most closely relates to current state is the rivalry between Germany and Great Britain in the late 19th century and then throughout the early half of the 20th century. While I think the similarities between the UK back then and the US now don't need much explaining, the similarities between Germany and China are also pretty stark: both gained traction as exporting economies. Both states are characterised by strong central leadership and the idea of a homogenous ruling people (not referring to modern Germany here). Both were/are a little late to the game of Empires, playing catch-up. Germany had developed more efficient and streamlined forms of bureaucracy that allowed the state to develop greater reach into society, similar to modern day China.

Interestingly, even though both Germany and the UK were fully aware of the devastating effect of machine guns (since they both used them to suppress uprisings in their colonies) they discounted their impact when they decided to go to war in 1914. I fear a similar situation could arise with today's nuclear weapons, and the rivalry between the US and China.

Don't forget the main difference: When Germany entered the stage, it competed with half a dozen of established players. China basically only competes with the US, whereas EU and Russia are "half weight" competitors (one is lacking military the other economical power).

I think the only other powers back then able to compete were the US (though at an early stage, and mostly an economical power at that point), France through its colonial empire (but neither economically nor militarily very strong having lost to Germany in 1871) and Russia. I don't think this is very much unlike today's set-up with the EU, Russia, and India as additional players on the global stage.

Back then, you have to count Austria-Hungary, the British Empire, the French and Russia as major powers, Germany being among them as well. The US became a major power only after WW1 and they used their economic power.

The US, GB, France, Russia, Japan, were all about the same weight class as Germany. Slightly behind that came middle powers like Italy and Austria Hungary and even further behind countries like China and Turkey, that did have the potential but were not in a good position at that point in time.

All in all, the playing field was much more diverse back than.

Edit: To emphasize my point: Around 1900, Germany was in constant search for allies to break out of the entanglement between GB, Russia, and France. Germany could manage to win a war against one or with some luck even two of their opponents. Three were always considered too much. China and the US nowadays only ever need to win one war against one opponent to win unopposed world dominance.

Isn't the issue with that nuclear weapons? The USSR/US conflict would have turned hot if it were not for MAD. Conversely, if MAD had applied, maybe WW2 would never have happened?

Since both China and the US have the capacity to annihilate each other, they're unlikely to engage in direct conflicts. So their struggle will be more like the cold war (proxy conflicts, squabbling over allies and prestige etc) than WW2 (direct fighting to conquer land/people).

The most interesting thing about the US China relationship is that they're mutually reliant. Decoupling their economies is likely impossible and even if it weren't would take decades. That wasn't true of the USSR/US or Britian/Germany. So that adds another layer of anti-direct-conflict mechanics.

I'm hopeful that a new Cold War might see some social improvement (the cold War was a boon for social programs, science and technology funding, education and the arts). Though I think it's unlikely as China is much weaker than the post-ww2 USSR was...

I agree with you insofar that nuclear weapons might really constitute a proper paradigm-shift that just changes the way war happens and the way those conflicts are being fought and ultimately resolved. But I'm not sure that's necessarily a given.

Germany and the UK were fairly closely coupled economically speaking in the run-up WW1. The UK was Germany's largest trading partner and biggest export market (which also used to be a concern for the UK government back then). Let's not forget that the label 'Made in Germany' was initially introduced for imported goods from Germany to warn UK consumers of inferior/cheaper copy-cat products

I am going to say the machine-gun of 2020 is any number of new technologies. Maybe drones and loitering munitions. The footage coming out of Nagorny-Karabah makes any vehicle or fixed object without air cover look like a death trap.

With the presence of machine guns pretty much any non armored vehicle is already a death trap. If I'm driving a regular car I'd be primarily worried about IEDs and direct machine gun fire. Nobody is going to waste their money on elaborate schemes to destroy an easy target.

There are even more interesting concrete similarities between Germany about 150 years ago, and China about 20 years ago:

- there's a theory that Germany caught up to Britain by ignoring international (well, British) copyright law in the 19th century and flooded the domestic market with cheap "illegal" copies of British (and from everywhere else) books and scientific papers, which greatly helped to develop German industry and science in the following decades [1]

- The now well-regarded "Made in Germany" was mandated by the UK to warn British customers about cheap copycat products from Germany (which later backfired because those products were both cheap and high-quality) [2]

[1] https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/no-copyright-...

[2] https://www.dw.com/en/125-years-of-made-in-germany/a-1618858...

To be fair, it seems that was a large component of how everyone caught up with the UK. And of course Europe had a long history of trying to get technologies out of places like China.

>The now well-regarded "Made in Germany" was mandated by the UK to warn British customers about cheap copycat products from Germany (which later backfired because those products were both cheap and high-quality) [2]

I mean in a sense we're approaching that stage with China now. Huawei, xiaomi etc. Make great quality phones, laptops, vacuum cleaners, etc.

Made in China as a cheap copycat is already over, although it still exists in parallel.

> Once the Nazis assumed power, Tworek shows, they consolidated and emulated the existing news system, rather than dismantling it altogether. The Nazis set up their new state news agency (the “German News Bureau,” or DNB) by simply merging Wolff and Telegraph Union, promoting Nazi-sympathetic journalists through the ranks, firing its Jewish employees, and tightening the reins of censorship that Weimar officials themselves had “fitted to the horse,” so to speak. Crucially, Nazi officials preserved Weimar-era technologies and contracts with the world's most powerful news agencies. Using the Hellschreiber—a teletypewriter that could broadcast news to multiple receivers at once, and was a capstone of Weimar attempts to counteract British cable hegemony—the Nazis could diffuse their news far and wide. In short, the Nazi Party benefitted from the very press system whose economic and bureaucratic infrastructures it rose to popularity critiquing, finding them incredibly well-suited for totalitarian ends.

What I gather from this is that mass communication mediums are all being used in the same way by political powers, whether you're looing at the Nazi regime, the CIA, the UK government, the Chinese CCP or any other power in history and today.

Why did you distinguish the CIA from the US government?

They did not mention the US government.

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