The First World War ended with Europe scarred by trenches, spent of its resources and littered with the bodies of the millions who died in battle. The direct consequences of World War I brought many old regimes crashing to the ground, and ultimately, would lead to the end of three-hundred years of European hegemony in the world.
No other war had changed the map of Europe so dramatically. Four empires disappeared: the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and the Russian. Four defunct dynasties, the Hohenzollerns, the Habsburg, Romanovs, and the Ottoman together with all their ancillary aristocracies, all fell during the war.
The Treaty of Versailles was the peace treaty which officially ended World War I between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany. After six months of negotiations, which took place at the Paris Peace Conference, the treaty was signed as a follow-up to the armistice signed in November 1918 in Compiègne Forest, (which had put an end to the actual fighting). Although there were many provisions in the treaty, one of the more important and recognized required that Germany accept full responsibility for causing the war and, under the terms of articles 231-247, where they would have to make reparations to certain members of the Allies.
It was decided by the Allies to use the Versailles Treaty to require Germany to pay enormous reparations, as, even thought it was done in hand-in-hand with the now defunct and obliterated Austro-Hungarians, it was German technicians and geneticists, under the watchful eye and guiding hand of Lagevin whom created the destructive biological Weapons, the “Taschenmonsters”.
The “Guilt Thesis” became controversial in Britain and the United States thanks to some papers written by Tesla and his associates. But in the process of getting ready to move onto greener pastures since it was obvious even the current government they helped betrayed them and would do so again if need be, not much time was devoted to helping someone who, deep down, they did feel deserved some punishment. Still, with the passing of certain articles in the Treaty of Versailles, it caused enormous bitterness in Germany, which nationalist movements, especially the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. NSDAP, or better known as the ‘National-Socialist German Workers Party’, came into existence under that name on 24 February 1920, but it had existed under the name German Workers’ Party, (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP) since January 1919. The party was founded in Munich by a group including Anton Drexler, Gottfried Feder, Dietrich Eckart, and Karl Harrer. Drexler, an avid German nationalist, had been a member of the militarist Fatherland Party for all of World War I, and was bitterly opposed to the armistice of November 1918 and to the revolutionary upheavals that followed in its wake.
The DAP was one of many small political groups formed in the wake of Germany’s defeat, which German conservatives saw as resulting from betrayal of the undefeated army by the SPD, the liberals, the intellectuals and the Jews. Like other groups, the DAP advocated völkisch ideology - the belief that Germany should become a unified ‘national community’, (Volksgemeinschaft) rather than a society divided along class and party lines. This small group would begin to exploit German embitterment towards this in the 1920’s, but the true power and sway they held with the people would not be realized until a decade later, they would become a powerful regime themselves, since Langevin’s work lived on in the party.
Dr. Dietrich Eckart was born as the son of a royal notary and law counselor . His mother died when he was ten years old; seventeen years later, in 1895, his father died as well, leaving him a considerable amount of money that Eckart nevertheless soon used up.
Eckart initially started to study medicine in Munich, and while tempted to drop out, the works of Tesla sparked interest in the man and gave him the drive to continue on. Getting his Master’s Degree, he moved to Berlin in 1899, and continue his practice for a full decade before he quit in the later part of 1909 to work as a poet, playwright and journalist. He wrote a number of plays, often with autobiographical traits; however, despite becoming the protegé of Graf Georg von Hülsen-Haeseler, the artistic director of the royal theatres, he was never successful as a playwright.
During the end of his days as a practicing doctor and able to map it out more with his free time and more liberal thinking as a writer, Eckart developed the ideology of “genius higher human”, based on earlier writings by Lanz von Liebenfels; he saw himself in the tradition of Arthur Schopenhauer and Angelus Silesius, and also became fascinated by Mayan beliefs. Eckart also loved and strongly identified with Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, but never had much sympathy for the scientific method until he met up with Rutger Langevin.
Seeing a kindred spirit in the German; a man whom was both associated with the arts, sciences, and interest in the evolution of humanity, Langevin took Eckart under his wing, sharing with him the secrets of genetic engineering which the Austro-Hungarians and the Kaiser were more than happy to help fund.
So while the majority and the lab destroyed and notes had been taken, Eckart still had his mind, and was now one of the heads of a party which could one day reuse the art of making and training Taschenmonsters.
In the Australian and New Zealand popular minds, the First World War became known as the nation’s “baptism of fire”, as it was the first major war in which the newly established countries fought, and it is one of the first cases where Australian troops fought as Australians, not just subjects of the British Crown. Anzac Day, (Australia New Zealand Army Corps) is thus held in great reverence by many Australians and New Zealanders.
Similarly, Anglo-Canadians believe that they proved they were their own country and not just subjects of the British Empire. Indeed, many Canadians refer to their country as a nation, “forged from fire” as Canadians were respected internationally as an independent nation from the conflagrations of war and bravery. Like their British counterparts, Canadians would commemorate the war’s dead on Remembrance Day. However the French-Canadians did not see it that way, creating a permanent chasm that would split the country.
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(Posted Mon, 17 Jul 2006 15:24)
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