JUST ANOTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRY

Germany And The End of A Nightmare



100 years ago Germany, with a population of 67 million, was the industrial powerhouse of Europe, Berlin a sophisticated metropolis the heart of an empire that was technologically innovative, progressive in social welfare provision and boasting the strongest labour movement in Europe. The future looked bright, the future promised a continent dominated industrially by German industry and technology and culturally by German ideas. It then all went horribly wrong and Germany entered a nightmare that grew ever darker as the century progressed.
Is it fanciful to see in the German world Cup victory in Brazil and the celebrating crowds close to the Brandenburg Gate as the moment that Germany finally emerged from that nightmare? Certainly for the first time in my lifetime the majority of British people were rooting for a German victory once they reached the final and in many cases even before the comprehensive 7 - 1 demolition of Brazil. Germany now just another European country, albeit the most powerful on the continent. 1914 and its consequences for Germany finally buried. This surely is a cause for celebration. 

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