The Schutztruppe (the colonial army of the German Empire) did not leave a good memory in German South West Africa, what is now Namibia, as it was responsible for the first genocide of the 20th century, against the native Herero and Namaqua people. However, Germany officially apologized in 2004, and today, one hundred and twenty […]
German Empire
Posted inModern Era
German Empire: The Unprecedented Federal State Formed by Kingdoms, Principalities, Duchies, and Republics, Where the Ruler Was Both Monarch and President
It is not the parliament that must grant it. With this terse statement, Frederick William IV of Prussia rejected the title of Kaiser der Deutschen (Emperor of the Germans) offered to him by the Frankfurt parliamentarians after the 1848 Revolution, as he believed it should be an initiative of the German princes. It was not […]
Posted inModern Era
How the Siege of Paris in 1871 Enabled German Unification, Proclaimed in Versailles
On October 7, 1870, one of those minor, anecdotal episodes that pepper History amidst greater events took place. A hydrogen balloon named Armand-Barbès lifted off from Paris, setting out towards Tours with an unusual passenger: none other than Léon Michel Gambetta, Minister of the Interior and War in the National Defense Government, a provisional administration […]
Posted inModern Era
The German General who Died Dressed in Tutu and Crown of Roses Dancing for the Kaiser
A deep shock must have seized those attending the party at Donaueschingen Castle on the night of November 14, 1908. There, in the middle of the ballroom, in the presence of Kaiser Wilhelm II, lay the body of a high-ranking German Empire general, Dietrich von Hülsen-Haeseler, who had just suffered a heart attack. This might […]
Posted inModern Era
The plans designed by the German Empire between 1897 and 1903 to invade the United States
That the German Empire had speculated on the possibility of invading the United States before the twentieth century was well known even before the Second World War, since as early as 1940 a German professor named Alfred Vagts published an article reviewing reports about plans to attack some cities on the east coast that he […]
