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English people (for obvious and well-understood historic reasons) are often averse to acknowledging the virtues of the German people, in many ways their most ancient and significant continental rivals. After two world wars in which the ‘Hun’ emerged as nightmarishly cruel and ultimately self-destructive, the English archetype of cool-headed analysis seemed naturally superior to the violent romance of Teutonic ambition.

The Germans have too much hunger; their imagination is too wild; their sense of history is too acute. They succumb too easily to mass-euphoria.

All of these accusations are valid and not just in the context of Nazi Germany.

Nevertheless, deeper down than the part of their nature they expose, the English secretly adore and envy German success. In fact, Germans are probably the most secretly envied (and publicly condemned) racial group in the world.

Nietzsche, Heidegger, Schiller, Goethe, Max Planck, Schopenhauer, Humboldt, Mann, Hegel, Kant, Stirner, Beethoven, Wagner, Strauss, Bach, Bismarck, Adenauer, Rocket Science, BMW, Mercedes, Maybach, Adidas, Audi, Bayer, Volkswagen, Porsche, Heroin, Aspirin, IG Farben, Daimler, Bosch, Hugo Boss, Deutsche Bank…

The history of the recent past is dominated by German energy, German initiative and German genius. The German economy is unreachably superior in form and output than any other economy (adjusted for size) outside Japan. If there was a country the size of America populated solely by Germans, it would likely rule the world for a millennium. Indeed, the tragedy of the European Union is that it assumed Europe to be populated by peoples equal in industrial capability to the Germans.

How do we account for German success? Common stereotype has the Germans as more ‘efficient’ than other peoples, but this is not really an explanation for anything. Why are they more efficient, more productive, more inventive and disciplined than the rest of Europe?

The answer is likely a biological and evolutionary one. Germans are naturally better at certain things than French, Italian, English and Spanish people are. The same applies vice versa of course. There are innumerable things that Germans cannot do well that the countries aforementioned can. The English are better writers and shipbuilders than Germans for example.

But we must acknowledge the importance of Germany and its relation to our common security. The German military is now the strongest in Europe, having overtaken the UK and France many years ago. Its population (despite the demographic malaise being as strong there as anywhere else) is still the largest.

European strength is to a large degree dependent on German strength, and history must not force us to disarm ourselves of our strongest shield and sharpest sword.

D, LDN.