Richard Werner

The First World War itself was, of course, quite devastating for Germany, also for all the other countries involved.

The number of people killed in the war, it's just horrendous, huge waste of lives and resources, very, very sad.

also Germany then in the Versailles Treaty.

After the starvation of 1919, this is meant to soften up Germany and then impose the Versailles, you know, strange rules on Germany.

Germany would be taken apart.

One quarter of Germany would be lost and given to other countries.

Lots of Germans, millions of Germans would now live in new countries, newly created by the British, such as Czechoslovakia and so on.

And so, you know, a lot of hardship followed this.

Despite that, they couldn't essentially change the fact that Germany was still scientifically leader in terms of engineering and production, was a leader in the world and was still a rival of Britain because the education system also hadn't really been destroyed.

And so...

A second round was needed.

Another world war was needed.

And for this, interestingly, a lot of investment took place in Germany in the 1920s that allowed a quick revival.

And of course, there's other issues, how Hitler came to power.

If we have time, we should talk about how did he actually come to power.

When you look at money and banking and central banking, you get some interesting new insights.

So we also had investment in Germany, particularly by America, American companies, ITT, General Motors, Ford, and then also banking, Brown Brothers Harriman, where Prescott Bush from the Bush family was active, supporting Germany.

Now, something very similar is happening or has been happening in recent decades.

Of course, the post Second World War global hegemon is America.

It's taken on that leadership role from Britain, originally even with its own colonies.