A Black Wednesday for the World Trade

Bye-bye Toblerone

Day of Liberation, so called it Trump. The European translation reads Day of Despotism.

Trump's tulips are watching their master's ceremony

The tariffs announced in the Rose Garden of the White House will restrict exports to the US and make imported goods more expensive. The logical consequence iś that consumer prices will increase in the United States.

Most economists predict the new tariffs will lead to more bankruptcies and rising unemployment figures in many countries. The tariffs could plunge the world into a dangerous trade war in which there will be only losers.

This view is not shared by Ms. Miller Wellington, who sells candies in Delta, a village of around 3000 people less than 100 miles south of Detroit. She is unfazed by the possibility of price increases predicted by most economists. "Sometimes you have to walk through fire to get to the other side," she says, echoing the president's main argument: "If tariffs bring companies and business back to hard-working people like the ones who live here, then it's worth it."

The Washington Post writes," Wall Street worries Trump tariffs could wreck the souring economy." 

Let Stephen Colbert enlighten us: 

"And Trump's toadies are out there defending the tariffs. Here's Louisiana Senator John Kennedy on FOX Business arguing that ultimately nothing is knowable, 'The truth is that nobody knows. I've listened to economists for the last month. Some say this will cause a recession; his tariffs will cause a recession. Others say it will cause growth. In my eight years in Washington, I've learned that for every economist, there's an equal and opposite economist.'"

(Laughter from the audience) And Stephen continued, "Sounds crazy, but it is actually true. For example, Milton Friedman was always opposed by the equal and opposite economist Friedmil Manton."

"Most experts dispute the idea that these tariffs would lead to any growth at all. Instead, they say we could be looking at a prolonged recession, higher prices, and higher unemployment. Okay, a little more practice. Man, awww, damn, these grapes smell like wrath."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 2,200, and the S&P 500 tumbled 6% as Wall Street's worst crisis since the COVID crash deepened after China matched President Donald Trump's big raise in tariffs announced earlier this week. 

Still, leaving Washington to watch a golf tournament at Mar-a-Largo, the "stable genius" claimed in one of his chopper talks:

Like this?

To be continued ...

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Freiburg and the Breisgau in the Peasants' War

Organization, execution, and consequences of peasant violence against castles, towns, and monasteries 1524/1525

Red Baron blogged about the Peasants' War before, and there is no end to it yet. This two-day conference was highly professional and too specialised for a physicist. Still, I found two lectures devoted to Freiburg.

The evening before the conference proper, aimed to present a history book: The Peasants' War in Freiburg and the Breisgau. A reader on the history of a crisis. This book, written by experts, formed the basis for the lectures of the following two days.

A lecture followed the book presentation: Punishing and Killing - Excessive Violence in the Peasants' War. There was looting, arson, rape and the occasional homicide on the part of the peasants, but the reaction of the authorities was excessive.

What held the authorities back from a general massacre of the peasants was that they were needed for food production.

A letter from the patrician and Nürnberg councillor Caspar Nützel to AlbrechtFriedrich of Prussia documents the authorities' overreaction, "... I do not think that anyone with any sense can deny how unjustly, unchristianly and even too excessively the authorities have torn the hair of their subjects, whom they are supposed to shepherd, provide for, govern and not oppress. Whether the punishment they inflict by disemboweling, burning, taking their possessions, driving them into misery making widows and orphans, and other cruel persecutions or even imposing penalties on the guilty and the innocent without any prior truthful inquiry and hearing of their answers and excuses is in proportionate to the ignorant acts of the subjects, Your Reverend Grace, as a praiseworthy and understanding prince, has to judge*."
*Mark Twain wrote in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, "Whenever the literary german dives into a sentence, this is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his atlantic with his verb in his mouth."

Massacre of peasants in an open field

On the other hand, Thomas Müntzer referred to the Old Testament and called for open violence: Do not take pity on yourselves, even if Esau suggests good words to you (Genesis 33).

 
Do not look on the wretchedness of the wicked. So they will ask you kindly, weeping and pleading like children. Do not be pitied, as God commanded through Moses and has revealed to us (Deuteronomy 7).

Violence begets counter-violence. In the south of the Reich, the high-born prince, Margrave Casimirius of Ansbach, came with horsemen and several servants and attacked the new noble peasants from the Ries. A horseman drove a spear through the one who wore the chasuble, thus mocking it. The spear was left stuck until the third day, so God's punishment was revealed.

The next day, Red Baron listened to a lecture on Conquer Freiburg. Threatening, besieging, and liberating: a praxeology of the Peasants' War.

The people of Freiburg's greatest fear was that they would not know when the peasants would march against the city. The peasants played on their psychological warfare skillfully:

The Freiburg chronicler Huldrichus Zasius complained, "I would gladly write to Mr. Montaigne [...] if it were not for the unfortunate unrest that is shaking our city and indeed the entire province at the hands of the peasants; for all around us is so full of fear, sadness, danger and attack that hardly an hour goes by when we do not fear destruction."

To scout and find out where the enemies are.
Write to cites and neighbors and have a good correspondence with each other.

Still, the city council puzzles: 

Since Friday, we have received several messages from the forest and have truly learned that the peasants are gathering heavily against Bonndorf. Yesterday, 80 people from Löffingen came to gather against Bondorf. They let it be known that they want to go to Breisgau next. They know their way around here well and will take the region.

Freiburg prepares:

       

Furthermore, all guildsmen, young or old, physically able, when they hear the storm, shall really leave, with their armor, and hurry to the fish market under the banner.

A servant identified as a spy was captured and interrogated, but the rumors she had spread made Freiburg's citizens extremely nervous:

Peasants with heavy equipment are aiming at the Freiburg Minster church.

After I returned to the city from the peasants' camp, I spread the rumor among the community and publicly announced the power with which the peasants were equipped. They had everything at hand that was needed for a field camp and an assault: sound cannons, powder, fire, bullets, and even more provisions. They were so well equipped that it would be impossible to hold the city. 

 Eventually, the peasants who wanted to emancipate themselves in Lutherey, Ketzerey, and Uffrur went on the offensive. First, they diverted the Dreisam's water for the city's mills and cut off its drinking water supply. On May 23, 1525, the peasant bunch from the Black Forest occupied the Carthusian monastery and climbed up the Schlossberg. 

 "It was a beautiful May evening", recounts the eyewitness Huldrichus Zasius. "The lords were sitting, as usual, on the cathedral square in front of their guildhall 'Zum Ritter' when suddenly several hundred shots from arquebuses announced that the peasants had occupied the Schlossberg. Immediately, the citizens took up arms." 

 From the top of the Schlossberg, the leader Hans Müller, dressed in a red cloak and red beret, fired shots at the spire of the cathedral tower until it fell to the ground, to the great jubilation of the attackers: "We shall lay Freiburg's church tower, like that in Kirchzarten." 

 Müller called on the city to join the Christian Union so that the Gospel would be spread according to the wording and the peasants would be freed from illegitimate levies. Eventually, facing the city walls, the peasants made themselves big: 

So we want to live with our other brothers and relatives closer to you and break into your city. Therefore, we admonish you fraternally to stand by us today so that much bloodshed, great ruin, and evil, mainly the ruin of the vines, will be avoided. 

 Help from the Habsburg authorities for Freiburg did not come. The final decision to surrender was possibly due to the announcement that the vines would be uprooted: 

Dear friends, you see that we lost the Schlossberg, and for five days, we have had neither a well nor a cup. Moreover, they have shot into the spire of the cathedral. Although we have been assured that help has been sent to us, we see that no one has come to us. For the preservation of our lives, our honor, our property, and our lives, we are obliged to come to an agreement with the peasants. 

The peasants marched into Freiburg on May 24. They forced the city council to join the Christian Union in establishing a general peace and eradicating the unjust grievances of the gemeiner Mann (common man) against the word of God and the holy Gospel imposed on him by the spiritual and secular authorities.

When the authorities eventually gained the upper hand in the German territories, the peasants left Freiburg.

In June, a municipal delegation traveled to Innsbruck to the Austrian government. It declared that Feiburg had only joined the peasants' Christian Union to avert harm to the city and its citizens:

Furthermore, no one should become involved with the Lutheran sect. Still, everyone who wants to live in Freiburg should stick to the Christian statutes that have been commonly held for hundreds of years until the authorities and those allowed to do so order otherwise.

The Innsbruck authorities were not satisfied with this excuse.

But that is another story.

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Germany's First Democracy

Click all pictures to enlarge.

The Walther-Rathenau-Gewerbeschule (Vocational School) in Freiburg hosts an exhibition dedicated to the Weimar Republic.

It is quite natural that this school should shed light on this particular period of German history for its namesake, Walther Rathenau, a key figure of the Weimar Republic. As an entrepreneur, politician, and diplomat, he shaped the period immediately following the First World War. 

France's harsh position against loser Germany became particularly evident in 1922 at the economic conference in Genoa, where Germany and Communist Russia found themselves completely isolated. This led to the rapid signing of the Treaty of Rapallo between the two states, the preliminary draft of which had already been drawn up in lengthy negotiations. Chancellor Josef Wirth and his Foreign Minister Dr. Walther Rathenau had thus demonstrated to the world that Germany, which had been shaken to the core, was free to act, albeit to a limited extent. In response, France occupied the Ruhr region, as it now had to fear that Germany would no longer meet its obligations to pay reparations: "Germany only understands the language of violence, snorted the French right, while the communists raged: Poincaré - la guerre. 

In Germany, on the other hand, the right wing raged because the fact that a Jew, Rathenau, who had a doctorate in natural sciences, was now representing the Reich government's policy of fulfillment vis-à-vis the Allies as foreign minister was a provocation that could no longer be surpassed. So right-wing Freikorp fighters got serious with their threat: "Knallt ab den Walther Rathenau, die gottverdammte Judensau (Shoot-down Walther Rathenau, the goddamned Jew sow)."

When Rathenau was "executed" with a machine gun in his car on an open road on June 24, 1922, in despair, Chancellor Wirth exclaimed in a speech to the members of the Reichstag, turning to the right: “There stands the enemy, dripping his poison into the wounds of a people. - There stands the enemy - and there is no doubt about it: this enemy is on the right.”

The exhibition illustrates the political, economic, and social life of the Weimar Republic, from the founding of the first German democracy to the challenges that the young republic failed to face. As Red Baron showed in a previous blog, those years were not golden for most people. 

For this blog, I primarily selected pictures from the exhibition I had not seen before. For the entire history of the Weimar Republic, I refer you to my German website.

It all began with a defeat.

The war is lost and was followed by ...

... riots in Germany's capital, Berlin.

Following the Kaiser's abdication, Germany became a republic and needed a constitution.

The constituent assembly convened in Weimar at the German National Theater on February 6, 1919.

     

The key figure of the Weimar Republic, President Friedrich Ebert,
with the Mexican president on a state visit to Berlin

Vae victis. What Germany is supposed to lose

In his opening speech to the constituent assembly, Ebert reminded the assembled men and women of all that was left of defeated Germany: "Now the spirit of Weimar, the spirit of the great philosophers and poets, must once again fill our lives."

On February 11, 1919, before the delegates began deliberating the constitution's text, they elected Friedrich Ebert as the first President of the German Reich.

     

The Kaiser in exile in Holland was not amused about a harness maker being president.

Female members of the National Assembly from the Catholic Zentrum Party

As the first German democracy, the Weimar Republic created many foundations on which our societies are still based today.

    

It is done. Habemus constitution!

Inflation! In the fall of 1923, two employees of a company
pick up the daily paid wages in sacks at the Reichsbank.

Elections to the Reichstag.
Here, the poster men of various parties stand peacefully side by side.

SA marschiert and has those injured in Saalschlachten (brawls)
with the political opponent, march in front as martyrs.

Millions of unemployed gehen stempeln.
After the benefit has been paid out, an official stamps the unemployment cards.

Culture, the arts, and science flourish.
Max Liebermann paints President von Hindenburg.
From 1933 on, the Impressionist painter was ostracized as a Jew. 

Following Hitler's appointment as Chancellor of the Reich, the SA triumphantly marched through the Brandenburg Gate near his studio. At the sight of the brown hordes, the aged artist is said to have exclaimed, "Ick kann jar nich soville fressen, wie ick kotzen möchte (I can't eat as much as I want to throw up.)"

     

Bertolt Brecht, Lotte Lenya, and Kurt Weill celebrate the success
of their Dreigroschenoper (Threepenny Opera) in Berlin.

The Zeppelin over the Brandenburg Gate

Am Tag von Potsdam, Reich Chancellor Hitler, in a lively conversation
with the son of the last emperor and a Nazi from the very beginning:
Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia.

With Him. Will he save the republic? President von Hindenburg was impressed
by the Day of Potsdam and covered up the establishment
of the Nazi dictatorship until he died in 1934.

Burning of books all over Germany on May 10, 1933

The history of the Weimar Republic is a lesson that democracy cannot be taken for granted but must be fought for and defended repeatedly.

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Europe versus America

My loyal readers know that I have a soft spot for Sabine Hossenfelder. Her short physics-description videos on YouTube are legendary, and her books are inspiring.

  

This blog post is about a video in which Sabine highlights the differences between the New World and Old Europe, pointing out many well-known stereotypes.

The nastiness between Europeans and Americans is very old, and one of the oldest remarks about America comes from the French philosopher Voltaire. Commenting on the origins of America, Voltaire remarked, "It is said that God created the world and left America unfinished."

Somewhat later, one of the founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, only had terrible news about European governments, "The comparison of our government with those of Europe is like a comparison of heaven and hell."

The Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud found that "America is a mistake; a gigantic mistake, it is true, but nonetheless a mistake."

Benjamin Franklin had harsh words for the Europeans, "People in Europe talk of liberty and complain that they lack it. But they do not understand the real meaning of the word as we do in America."

To which George Bernard Shaw has a reply, "Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve." 

Two generations before Lincoln's American government of the people, by the people, for the people, John Adams castigated the European heritage, "I am no friend to aristocracy, and I am sure it is incompatible with liberty. The Europe I have seen is ruled by a few, for the few."

When George Bernard Shaw states, "The 100% American is 99% idiot.", Mark Twain rightly castigates European arrogance, "The English are mentioned in the Bible: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."

Oscar Wilde, from the motherland England, about the wayward child, "America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between."

Yes, English and Americans have a long love-hate relationship. At times, it goes below the belt when American stand-up comedian Jackie Mason pretends that "England is the only country in the world where the food is more dangerous than the sex."

With her stays in the States, Sabine has lived in both worlds. The remarks forwarded in her video are "scientifically" biased. Here is her most relevant text passage:

Americans just have different values than Europeans. We each have a different idea of what makes for a good life, and it makes no sense that we try to impose our values on each other.

Many Americans, for example, think of freedom as individual autonomy, being left alone by the government, and being able to say what they want without limitations. This is why they are skeptical of the idea of making health insurance mandatory, don't think much of social welfare programs, and constantly complain about censorship.

They've grown up learning that if you want to be successful, you need to take risks. They've grown up learning that failure is a normal part of life and an opportunity to learn. They've grown up learning to value independence.

Europeans, on the other hand, are more likely to associate freedom with social security. They want to be free to pursue their interests without having to worry about being in debt for the rest of their lives because they want to study physics without having to ask for donations to pay for cancer treatment or get shot at the mall in Europe.

We tend to see universal healthcare, tuition-free education, and unemployment benefits as the basis of individual liberty. We accept higher taxes and regulations as protection from systemic risks like poverty and illness, and most of us agree that one person's free speech ends when it is dangerous for another person's safety or dignity. We've grown up learning that bad fortune can hit anyone. We've grown up learning that we're stronger together. We've grown up learning to think before acting. Yes, these are terrible stereotypes.

The French would say, "Vive la difference!" and Red Baron finds that's good subscribing to Sabine's text, including the stereotypes, except for one statement. I did not learn to think before acting in high school in the early fifties. Instead, I had to make painful experiences in my life according to the principle of learning by doing wrong things.

Although I have never lived in the United States for any length of time, I once had a job offer there, and this was shortly after I joined CERN.

Together with my Norwegian boss, nearly the entire CERN Radiation Protection Group attended the 2nd International Conference on Accelerator Dosimetry and Experience at SLAC in 1969.

On our way back home, we flew through Chicago to visit Fermilab and its Tevatron accelerator, where the boss of the radiation protection group made me an offer. I remember that I impressed Miguel's secretary with my rudimentary English and my shit European accent as the exotic guy from Overseas.

Miguel invited me in his private plane and showed me the Tevatron site's splendor from above. I can only describe the scene with Matthew 4:8-9, "All this you will serve," he said, "if you will accept my offer and allow me to be your boss."

As a young father still struggling to find my position at CERN and thinking of my European wife, I declined the offer. Here comes a slide Sabine showed during her talk:

Taking everything into account, I never regretted my decision.

Years later, an Italian colleague flew across the big pond and joined the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). Whenever he visited his home country, he passed by and said hello to his old colleagues at CERN. He was worried that his pension at SLAC wouldn't suffice to support him in his old days since the pension fund had lost a lot of money in the stock market. He stated, "I must work beyond my retirement," a common situation among academic staff in the States.

As a side note, when I asked for such a "privilege" at CERN, personnel simply told me in German, "Mit 65 ist Schluss."

Coming back to the initial topic. In her talk, Sabine showed a graphic that saddens me:

Europeans' sympathy for Americans is declining rapidly. We Germans, in particular, are full of angst that the transatlantic alliance Europe has relied on for decades will break.

Is it comforting that we Europeans are not the only ones who do not understand why the Americans elected Donald Trump? An American columnist also asked, "What exactly did Americans elect Mr. Trump to do? "

She continued her queries, "Did people want him to remake the government and disrupt the global financial order, or did they just want cheaper groceries? "

When looking at the outcome of our recent federal elections and regarding the present political situation in the Netherlands following their elections, I would not throw stones while sitting in a glass house as a Dutch lady does:

Germany, during years hypnotized by its Schuldenbremse (debt brake), suddenly woke up with the disturbing image of the Ukrainian president humiliated in the White House. 

In an unprecedented show of strength, the future German government, comprised of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, is whipping a one trillion-euro credit for armament and infrastructure improvements through the Bundestag (Parliament) and Bundesrat (Senate). This is only possible with a constitutional amendment requiring a 2/3 majority in both chambers. Yesterday, the Bundestag voted for the one trillion debt with a majority of 513 to 207. The Bundesrat will agree to the amendment on Friday.

Can't Germany afford higher debt?

This oversized financial shot will hopefully help Germany emerge from its stagnating economy. Will it also help to avoid a world apportioned between the USA, Russia, and China, with us Europeans as mere onlookers?

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Modern Times

Pictures of the 1920s.

Elisabeth Voigt, The Little Drummer, 1926

This blog should have been written long ago, but the fast-moving political events have diverted my attention.

The vernissage of the exhibition Modern Times took place on September 25 last year. I tried to photograph some interesting pictures of the objects presented, but people were standing on each other's feet, so it was in vain. 

Click to enlarge

So I went to the Freiburg Museum of Contemporary Art later and had the exhibition rooms all to myself.

Modern times, everyone involuntarily thinks of the movie with Charlie Chaplin. A scene from it was also shown in an anteroom in an endless loop. 

Charlie runs after a woman with his wrench and tries to twist her skirt's buttons. Red Baron saw the movie as a student. The audience doubled over with laughter.

Walter Jacob, Prometheus 1220

Like another exhibition at Freiburg, Modern Times is on loan from the Altenburg Museums. They could not house their exhibition materials during the renovation of their premises and, therefore, loaned them for two exhibitions in Freiburg.

In the US, the 1920s are also known as The Roaring Twenties, in France as les années folles and in Italy as Anni ruggenti.

George Grosz, Vorm Schaufenster (Window Shopping) 1924

Käthe Kollwitz, Bread! 1924

In Germany, the social situation was anything but fun for most of the population, but during the Goldenen Zwanziger, the bear began to tap too, especially in Berlin.

Erich Haeckel, Zwei Verwundete (Two Wounded Veterans) 1914

The First World War ended with defeat, and Germany was humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles. The bloody war was a trauma that left its marks on people's souls and bodies. 

Gas and Hand Grenades

At a Lost Post

Maltreated Creature

Air Attack on Civilian Targets

Otto Dix, Die Kartenspieler (Cardplayers) 1920

Otto Dix's depictions illustrate the atrocities of the war.

Conrad Felixmüller, Soldat im Irrenhaus (Soldier in the Madhouse) 1918

War cripples were locked away or dominated the streets of Berlin and elsewhere as beggars.

Germany's post-war economic situation was catastrophic. Unemployment was high, money devaluation was galloping, society was torn apart, and the public was polarized, with a tendency towards radicalism. 

Käthe Kollwitz, Gedenkblatt (Memorial Sheet) für Karl Liebknecht 1919

Political murder was the order of the day.

Although it was forbidden, women of all ages who needed money due to hyperinflation prostituted themselves as an unavoidable sideline. Hans Baluscheck was fascinated by their faces and drew a portfolio of portraits of Unsocial Women in 1923.

Straßendirne (Steetwalker)

Vorstadtdirne (Suburban Prostitute)

Rummelnutte (Fairground Hooker)

Kokainistin (Cocaine Addict)

Kupplerin (Bawd)

The Weimar Republic tried in vain to improve the social situation of the population but fell into disrepute over the years.

Franz Xaver Fuhr, Café Kantore 1925

In Germany from 1924 onwards, in the Golden Twenties people lived out their individual freedom in cafés, brothels, and cabarets. Art, culture, and science flourished. 

Hanna Nagel Ein Akademieprofessor zeichnet die Maria
(An Academy Professor Draws Mary) 1931

While few revelled in unbridled wealth, many lived in abject poverty, and some enjoyed little happiness.

Conrad Felixmüller, Schichtwechsel auf Grube Gotteswort
(Shift change at God's Word mine) 1921

It was Germany's emergence into the modern age, with lofty dreams and boundless plans, but simultaneously a dance on a volcano. Because crises (Black Friday) followed one another, escalated immeasurably and, by the end of the 1920s, could no longer be controlled even with Notverordnungen (emergency decrees).

Click to enlarge

The end came in 1933, the triumph of those who despised democracy. Was the slide into the dark Nazi dictatorship avoidable?

Remember Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker who highlighted the rapid dismantling of the Weimar Republic by the Nazis warning his fellow citizens, "It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic."

For Red Baron, the Nazis' Machtergreifung (seizure of power) took only slightly longer. It began on  January 30, 1933, with Hitler's appointment as Reichs Chancellor and was completed on March 23, with the passing of the Ermächtigungsgesetz (Enabling Act). My German-reading friends may read the full stoy here.

Let the fall of the Weimar Republic be a lesson to us and a warning to recognize and prevent the destruction of freedom in good time. Although the Golden Twenties are long gone, they are still highly topical.

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