General Discussion

I am not particularly up to speed on the exact series of events internally on the German side at the time of the First World War ended.

I'll take your word for it; it can be said, though, that Weimar was associated with the defeat, and perhaps this is the reason that the "stab in the back" myth offered such resonance in Germany.

My familial connection to being of German extraction are far more tenuous than your own. My mother signed one of her pictures she gave to my father in German (although, she didn't speak any German really) when they were dating. I still have it. She signed, "Ich leibe du" rather than "Ich liebe dich," so there's that. Maybe she was trying to flatter his German origins; I don't know; they've both been dead for a very long time.

I've mostly focused on the background of the American intervention, a kind of curious thing about which to think.

It's funny to find myself in this conversation, because just two days ago, I watched a CSPAN history lecture on line by Jennifer Keene, teaching a class on American "neutrality" during World War I, and the reasons the US entered the war.

Jennifer Keene Myths About America in World War I.

She spent part of the lecture talking about Herbert Hoover's relief efforts in Belgium.

Belgium, at that time was considered an "German atrocity." Of course, Belgium was responsible for the "Congo atrocity" about which very little is said, even to this day.

But to return to the 20th century war(s):

I often engage in the perspective of there being a "World War I" and a "World War II," but at the end of the day, I think they were the same war, interrupted by a two decade smoldering intermission, and the so called "Cold War" being a smoldering sequel.

History is a horror that flows in darkened light; hopefully we will not mirror 1933; I don't think we will.