Author: Xusheng source: Xusheng (official account id:lxlong20) has been reproduced with authorization

Looking at the situation in Europe, Russia still wants to connect with France and Germany. You can wonder why if there is any trouble in Europe, everyone should look at Germany’s attitude.

I think the text I wrote before basically solves this problem.

Germany deserves to be the backbone of Europe in terms of science, technology, geography and industry.

But on another level, Germany, as the backbone, is covered with many chains.

01 ??

Let me tell you a story. A local tyrant once did business in Germany and made a lot of money. In the world he observed, the Germans were lazy, stupid and poor. They went to his place to eat, drink and smoke from time to time. When he buried Germany, he would be very proud of Oriental culture. When he taught his son, he did not want to spend a lot of time on the oriental culture he was proud of, but let his son work hard on science and engineering such as mathematics, physics and chemistry. He did not think that many theorems and formulas in the field of mathematics, physics and chemistry were actually developed by the Germans. This story can actually reflect different aspects of Germany.

The geography of Europe is interesting——

The European ridge Alps is located in the south of central Europe, and the south of the foothills is the traditional Mediterranean civilization circle; The west side of the Piedmont is the Western European Plain, mainly France; To the north of the Piedmont is the Bode plain, dominated by Germany.

In the traditional perception of many people, Germany is located in the middle of Europe, just like the Central Plains of Europe. It is a land locked country in Europe. In fact, this cognition has two major deviations.

One of the deviations, Germany and Italy, is equivalent to sitting back-to-back on both sides of the Alps. Northern Germany can face the Baltic sea like Russia and Sweden, or the Atlantic (North Sea) like the Netherlands and Denmark.

So Germany is not a landlocked country. Not only that, the rivers flowing out of Germany are very unique——

To the north, the Oder River flows into the Baltic Sea;

The Elbe and Rhine (the third largest river in Europe) flow into the Atlantic (North Sea) to the West;

Eastward, the Danube (the second largest river in Europe) flows into the Black Sea.

In addition to the Southern Alps, Germany has large rivers flowing out to the west, North and East. Among the major European countries, Germany can also be regarded as the backbone of Europe geographically. Even if the whole European countries are included, Germany has the highest terrain except Switzerland and Austria in the Alps.

The reason why people think that Germany is a landlocked country is that except for the Elbe River, the estuary of these rivers flowing out of Germany is not in the hands of Germany. The estuary of Oder River is in Poland, the estuary of Rhine River is in the Netherlands, and the estuary of Danube River is in Eastern Europe.

Rivers are the meridians of the earth. For a country, if it loses its river mouth, it is like a blockage of its meridians, like a chain tied to its body.

So from another perspective, the wars launched by Germany can actually be seen as efforts to open the sea, trying to clear the vein and get rid of the chains.

To open up Western Europe is equivalent to trying to open up the estuary of the Rhine River; Opening up Eastern Europe is equivalent to trying to open up the estuary of the Danube River.

The second deviation is that although it is located in Central Europe and is in a four war zone, it is more often Germany that goes to fight others. Although he was very brave, but the strategy was not in place. In the end, he was always beaten up and ended in failure.

Only by understanding these can we better understand Germany’s aggressiveness.

02 ???

In the era of the Roman Empire, the Germanic people were one of the three barbarians in the north of the Alps. They originated in northern Europe and then went all the way south to cross the Alps, throwing the Roman Empire into pieces.

Germany is the main country of the Germanic people. In fact, the history of Germany is very simple, that is, the three empires.

The Holy Roman Empire, known as the first empire, dragged on for a long time and was finally destroyed by Napoleon.

Germany of William II, known as the Second Empire, was broken up in the first World War.

Hitler’s Nazi Germany, known as the Third Reich, was broken up in the Second World War.

These events are all hot spots in world history. In the end, without exception, Germany was defeated. It was the final failure of these wars that made the rivers flowing out of Germany become like chains on Germany.

According to the big cycle law of the three-dimensional historical view, Europeans have taken the lead in the tide of industrial civilization since the 17th century. First, the three British Islands opened the door to industrialization, and then the industrial tide flowed into the European continent, where the Rhine River Basin became the vein of European industrial civilization.

The Rhine is the third largest river in Europe, second only to the Volga River and the Danube River.

In Western Europe, the Rhine is the largest river. It originated in Switzerland and later became the border river between France and Germany.

To the west of the Upper Rhine River is Alsace Lorraine, the second largest industrial group in France (second only to Paris industrial group). The French heroine, comrade Joan of arc, is a village girl in the countryside of Lorraine.

The East Bank of the Rhine is Ruhr Industrial Zone in Germany. If Germany is the engine of the European economy, then Ruhr was once the engine of Germany.

Looking at the middle and lower reaches of the Rhine, along the banks are a series of famous German cities, such as Mannheim, Ludwigshafen, Mainz, Wiesbaden, Koblenz, Bonn, Cologne, Dusseldorf and Duisburg, which are similar to the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration in China.

The Rhine finally enters the sea in Amsterdam (similar to Shanghai in the Yangtze River Delta).

The Rhine is not only the root of Western Europe, but also the money bag of Europe.

From Switzerland to the Netherlands, the wealth concentrated on both sides of the Rhine can be said to be astronomical.

And the war always revolves around the money bag.

Most of the wars between France and Germany in history started along the Rhine River.

During the Holy Roman Empire, France’s Alsace Lorraine was considered German territory.

In the times of Louis XIV and Napoleon, France was relatively strong and took Alsace Lorraine away. Especially in the Napoleonic era, the ideology of “freedom, equality and fraternity” was implanted there, and it became the territory of the French ideologically.

In the Franco Prussian War, Germany won and cut off Alsace Lorraine.

In World War I, with the help of Britain, tsarist Russia and the United States, France defeated the Second Reich. It not only cut off Alsace Lorraine, but also took away Germany’s Ruhr district, which was equivalent to a fatal blow to weak Germany. Then the Austrian artist came to the stage. The key step was to send troops to the East Bank of the Rhine River to lay the groundwork for the Second World War.

In the Second World War, Nazi Germany swept through Western Europe and washed tanks on the Atlantic coast. In fact, from another perspective, it just opened the estuary of the Rhine River. That was the pinnacle of Germany. In fact, it was the money bag that controlled the Rhine. At that time, the Rhine was the blood of Germany. After the war, Germany once again lost Alsace Lorraine and the lower Rhine estuary. The Rhine looks like a German chain again.

03 ????

Looking east, it is the Danube, the second largest river in Europe.

The Danube connects the Germanic and Slavic peoples. Germany and Austria in the upper reaches belong to the Germanic people, while those countries split from the former Yugoslavia in the middle and lower reaches are mainly Slavonic.

In European history, the Germanic people in the upper reaches of the Danube River have been trying to conquer the lower reaches.

During the first World War, the Austro Hungarian Empire almost opened the mouth of the Danube River.

Before World War II, Hitler annexed Austria and United many countries in the Balkans, which was a short-term opening of the Danube River. But like the Rhine estuary, it was lost when the war ended.

Although Germany has twists and turns at the sea ports of the Rhine and Danube, what really reflects the German chain is the loss of the sea port of the Oder River.

The south of Germany is a mountain or plateau, and the north is the Bode plain. The history of Germany’s great and deep deforestation is mainly to gallop across the Bode plain. Poland suffered the most.

If you want to select the list of sad countries from history, Poland must be on the list. Poland was sandwiched between Germany and Soviet Russia, and was divided up carelessly.

In 1772, Prussia, Austria and tsarist Russia divided Poland for the first time.

In 1793, Prussia and tsarist Russia divided Poland for the second time.

In 1795, Prussia, Austria and tsarist Russia divided Poland for the third time.

Poland is like a little daughter-in-law among hooligans, who is accidentally violated. Poland can recover its country thanks to Napoleon who beat Germany and tsarist Russia to pieces in Europe

After Napoleon’s defeat, Poland was once again divided between Germany and Russia, and was not restored until the first World War. On the eve of World War II, poor Poland was once again divided up by Germany and the Soviet Union.

In the history of Germany’s participation in the partition of Poland, the Oder River has always been Germany’s inland river.

In 1944, with the defeat of the German army, Poland restored its country and demanded to restore its original territory. However, Poland perished in 1939 under the joint strangulation of Germany and the Soviet Union. Germany occupied western Poland and the Soviet Union annexed eastern Poland. After Germany’s defeat, it naturally spit out the occupied Polish territory. As a victorious country, the Soviet Union directly transferred the occupied Polish territory to the Soviet Union, and as compensation, it also transferred the eastern part of Germany to Poland.

Germany thus lost the estuary of the Oder River.

Also lost is East Prussia.

German territory has shrunk from about 470000 square kilometers before World War II (excluding Austria, Czechoslovakia and other places occupied by Germany before World War II) to 357000 square kilometers after World War II, with a loss ratio of about 24%.

In particular, the loss of East Prussia was a heavy blow to Germany. At that time, Stalin pointed out that East Prussia was the root of German militarism. In order to avoid a resurgence of war, the Soviet Union included the capital of East Prussia, konisburg (renamed Kaliningrad) and its surrounding areas into the Soviet Union, and other areas into Poland. In 1947, the Soviet Union once again implemented the cold-blooded policy of reserving land but not people, expelling all Germans in East Prussia, and allowing Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians to move here. East Prussia was equivalent to being completely destroyed.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kaliningrad became an enclave far away from Russia. The land where Kant, Herbart, Goldbach, Hilbert and many other historical celebrities were born is now completely barren.

04 ???

Throughout the history of Germany, the following features can be found:

Germany is very belligerent;

Germany’s combat effectiveness is really strong;

Germany was always defeated in group fights;

But it gives the impression that it is still glorious even though it has failed.

Because Germany will soon rise and become strong again after the defeat. Few countries in the world like Germany have experienced so many failures and rises. Especially in modern times, the disastrous defeat and rapid rise of Germany made people dizzying. To ask about cause and effect, Germany has contributed a lot to this industrial civilization cycle.

Why was Germany able to start two world wars? That is because in the early 19th century, the Germans led the second technological revolution. Comte, Hegel, Marx, Einstein, Planck and Heisenberg, who are capable of changing the trend of human civilization, can be called the backbone of Europe. They opened a new door to the Germans and raised the German heritage.

In order to cultivate national or national heritage, the key lies in cultivating masters.

So even if the Germans were defeated, they could rise rapidly. After the defeat of World War II, Germany was occupied by regions, which was equivalent to being dismembered, but it took off quickly in the economic field.

When the cold war between the Soviet Union and the United States got worse, the economies of Germany and Japan took off, changed the world economic landscape and became synonymous with high-end manufacturing. Germany is hidden within the EU, no longer fighting, and has become the engine of Europe. If the EU develops well, the geopolitical chain tied to Germany will be easily solved.

From the perspective of this epidemic, the calm, preciseness, spirit and realistic details of the German character have been shown again. But Germany can take care of itself, but it cannot take care of Europe. Therefore, the EU is doomed to be full of difficulties, and Germany’s strategy of trying to solve the geopolitical chain through the EU is also difficult to implement. Fortunately, Germany has abundant experience in repeated defeats and battles.