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Gennady Stolyarov II and Tobias Teufel Discuss Science, Technology, Politics, and Transhumanism

Gennady Stolyarov II and Tobias Teufel Discuss Science, Technology, Politics, and Transhumanism

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Tobias Teufel
Gennady Stolyarov II

On July 9, 2019, U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II conversed with Tobias Teufel, a transhumanist from Germany and Allied Member of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, regarding a variety of subjects – including a comparison / contrast of the voting systems in Germany and the United States, robotics, 3D printing, space colonization, life extension, possibilities for persuading those who are reluctant to accept emerging technologies, as well as some thoughts that Mr. Teufel had in connection with the recent First Virtual Debate of the U.S. Transhumanist Party’s Presidential primary candidates. Overall, Mr. Teufel shared some excellent insights regarding technological possibilities – including many that are open to ordinary people today – and some promising ways in which the Transhumanist Party can continue to reach out and educate the public about ongoing technological advances and their uses. Watch the conversation on YouTube here.

Become a member of the U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party for free, no matter where you reside. Apply here in less than a minute.

The Non-Battle of Auburn Was a True Victory for Liberty – Article by Dan Sanchez

The Non-Battle of Auburn Was a True Victory for Liberty – Article by Dan Sanchez

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The New Renaissance Hat
Dan Sanchez
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Auburn, Alabama is nicknamed “the loveliest village on the plains.” But ugliness threatened to descend on it last Tuesday when outsiders came looking for a fight. Thankfully, residents and Auburn University students refused to oblige, much to their honor and wisdom.

The occasion was a speech on campus by white-nationalist provocateur Richard Spencer. Spencer’s representatives had booked the space ahead of time, but the university tried to rescind. Spencer intended to deliver the speech anyway, but a federal court settled the matter by forcing the school to fulfill the contract on First Amendment grounds.

In a stroke of brilliance, student groups, including AU’s chapter of Young Americans for Liberty, organized a music concert for students to attend as a peaceful protest, and generally encouraged all to be civil. This creative and constructive response proudly stands in stark contrast to the screaming fits and vandalism that has met right-wing speakers on other campuses throughout the country. Through its cool, rational, and moral leadership in the affair, the AU Young Americans for Liberty distinguished itself as a true representative of the spirit of classical liberalism.

However, outside groups also came into town, with decidedly non-peaceful intentions. It was the usual suspects: leftist agitators including Antifa and rightist pro-Trump activists ready to confront them.

The Washington Post inaccurately reported that “violence erupted,” only to later edit their story, admitting that they had grossly exaggerated what happened. There was only one momentary exchange of fisticuffs between two out-of-towners that was immediately broken up by local police.

Civil Warmongers

Militants on both the left and the right are probably disappointed that significant political violence didn’t actually erupt in Auburn, as it has three times this year in Berkeley, California. Each Berkeley brouhaha has been more violent than the last, with Marxists pepper spraying, swarming, and beating nationalists, and nationalists punching and clubbing their assailants in response.

Both sides are itching for a fight. With the left, this is manifest in the fact that they are typically the ones to strike first. They self-righteously posture as “anti-fascists” (thus, “Antifa”), yet they employ the decidedly fascist tactic of using violence to try to silence their political enemies.

But many on the right are looking for trouble as well. They claim to merely be asserting their right to free speech and protecting that right through self-defense. And for many, that claim is genuine. But for the militants among them, it’s far more than that.

Many on the populist, nationalist right clearly relish the prospect of mixing it up with the left, or in the case of chest-puffing Internet Warriors, of goading others into doing so on their behalf. They make this quite explicit in their proclamations on social media, blogs, and comment threads. They exhibit, not just a resolute “guardian” mentality, but a pugnacious “warrior” mindset.

Many self-styled “patriots” believe that a civil war is coming: indeed, that the early stages are already upon us. The truest-believers among them seek to accelerate that conflict, so that it can be decided in their favor all the sooner. Some even believe that massacres will be necessary. To show that I’m not being paranoid or making things up, this is how an “anti-communist” activist on Facebook responded to my previous article on this topic:

“Oh and I don’t think this is possible to resolve without violence. The left is so unbelievably radicalized. I tried to talk with them and after trying to speak to them for almost 12 hours, one person actually engaged me while everyone else just screamed Nazi at me. They, by and large, are incapable of reason. When reason fails, what other options do we have? I would prefer secession, but I think we all know that the parasites won’t let us leave peacefully. It’s going to end in war one way or another. I fear we may even need to conduct mass exterminations of the left. They’ve become almost a difference species to us. How do you deal with that kind of gap? They’re literally a Satanic horde of barbarians driven to psychotic behavior.”

In other words, “They unreasonably call us Nazis, therefore we must behave like Nazis.”

If you know where to look, or if you write an article that rustles the right jimmies, you can find, or be found by, comments approaching this level of savagery all around the internet: the self-righteous warmongering, the rhetoric of dehumanization, the recourse to extermination.

As Christian individualist Will Grigg wisely warned shortly before his recent passing, this kind of thinking is fomented by political street violence: even the low-level, posturing, somewhat silly clashes we’ve seen thus far:

“…through political cosplay people can become habituated into thinking in eliminationist terms: The “other side” is not merely gravely mistaken, but irreducibly evil, and since reason is unavailing the only option that remains is slaughter.”

For still other radicalized nationalists, not just leftists, but other “less-than-American” demographic groups (especially Muslims) are also to be expelled or exterminated en masse.

Rules for Radicals

Many militant nationalists welcome and encourage these left/right face-offs in the streets, because they want matters to be brought to a head. They hope the successive brawls will continue to escalate, culminating in the outbreak of a full-on civil war that will decide the issue once and for all.

But they face the fundamental problem that besets all extremists in times of relative civil peace: they are a numerically tiny fringe. They can only hope to launch and win such a climactic war if they can induce large numbers of moderates to join the fight. The standard way militant extremist fringes have dealt with this problem has been to precipitate and/or instigate political violence in a bid to swell their ranks by radicalizing moderates.

When sympathizers see pictures of men and women draped in American flag apparel and MAGA hats with pepper spray in their eyes and blood in their noses after having been brutalized by leftist hoodlums, it incites them to lend their own muscle to the next flashpoint. Each battle, if sufficiently sensationalized, serves as a recruitment drive for the next. This explains the otherwise bizarre phenomenon of a right-wing agitator at Berkeley gleefully grinning on camera after having been beaten up, obviously ecstatic over having his bloodied face broadcast far and wide.

Each Battle of Berkeley recruited for the next. Now rightwing firebrand Ann Coulter is threatening to defy her dis-invitation from UC Berkeley and show up to give a speech there next week. Not only veterans, but viewers of the previous Battles of Berkeley, both left and right, might be eager to join Round Four.

Not only does sensational conflict provide militant extremists with more allies, but it wins them more followers. As conditions become more warlike, the leadership of political movements tends to fall into the hands of the most antipathy-driven and aggressively violent factions.

For example, after the Arab Spring protest movement in Syria was militarized by US shipments of weapons, supplies, and money, leadership of the resistance was quickly seized by Al Nusra (Syrian Al Qaeda) and ISIS.

This “vanguard effect,” as we might call it, is almost certainly why Antifa is so eager to incite and instigate clashes as well. The militant right and the militant left feed off of each other in a symbiosis of savagery.

Thus a writer for a major white-nationalist web site, in an article about the recent events in Auburn, seemed to be just as disappointed as the strife-mongering Washington Post over the anticlimactic way it panned out, again thanks to the leadership of AU’s Young Americans for Liberty. He expressed frustration that not enough libertarians were entering the fray, either in word or in deed. After enumerating a litany of national grievances against the left, he whined that:

“Each of these should be enough to make a real friend of liberty grab a stick and join the fight against the antifa.”

Yeah, Well They Started It

For many of the right-populist demonstrators in Berkeley, letting the left throw the first punch has been a matter of principle. But many of their militant allies and supporters have no moral compunctions against initiating violence against Marxists like the Antifa, as their online discourse indicates.

Just as the militant left shares memes about sucker-punching Nazis WWII-style, simply for believing in Nazism, the militant right has its own memes about throwing Communists from helicopters Pinochet-style, simply for believing in Communism. For pretend-militants, this is only 4chan-style dark humor. But for the many actual militants, it is a laughing expression of a deadly-serious belief.

Both sides speciously rationalize such violence as preemptive or defensive on the grounds that their political enemies have already initiated violence by supporting rights-violating policies. Such a breezy renunciation of the principles of free speech/thought and proportional defense/justice is nothing but civil war propaganda masquerading as moral philosophy.

So, for the “Helicopter Right,” letting the left lash out first is clearly not a matter a principle. For them, it is a cynical strategy of war. Unlike their less-disciplined leftist counterparts, the militant right realizes that such restraint gives them a plausible claim to the moral high ground, which in turn aids recruitment by contributing to the perception that their cause is just. If the militant right ever takes the lead of a force with real heft, the moral high ground would rapidly become more strategically costly than beneficial. Once that happens, don’t expect them to observe such non-aggression-principle “niceties” indefinitely.

Accelerate the Crisis

Throughout history, sowing conflict and precipitating crisis are how fringe militant political movements have gained prominence and power out of proportion to their numerical size. In calmer times, their extremist ideas are considered noxious. But if they incite or instigate strife, they can make moderates more open to extremism by triggering intense intra-group collectivism and inter-group hostility.

Thus interwar Austrian Marxists staged false-flag attacks in order to “sharpen the contradictions” between capital and labor and to accelerate the great class war in which they would be the vanguard of the unified proletariat in the final struggle against the bourgeoisie.

Similarly, the express purpose of ISIS’s terrorist attacks is to “dwindle the gray zone” between the West and the Muslim world and accelerate the great holy war in which they would be the vanguard of the unified “Camp of Islam” in the final struggle against the “Crusader Camp.”

The populist, nationalist, militant right basically agrees with both the commies and the jihadis. Like their champion in the White House Steve Bannon, they too believe that a climactic battle is coming, and that Marxists and Muslims will be among their mortal enemies in that inevitable Ragnarök. They only differ over whose will be the last tribe standing.

Now Bannon seems to be on the outs, and so the direct influence of his worldview on Trump has seemingly dwindled. Instead of populist-nationalist mayhem with a complementary dose of establishment-globalism, Trump is now continuing the long presidential tradition of afflicting the world with establishment-globalist mayhem with a complementary dose of populist-nationalism.

For Bannon’s fellow “winter is coming” nationalists, their felt loss of influence in Washington will make street action all the more crucial in hastening the final reckoning with the left and the left’s constituents. So we can expect the militant right to be even more focused on sowing civil strife.

The Case for De-Escalation

The ideas of the militant left are vile, and just as dangerous as those of the militant right. I don’t counsel against physically fighting the left out of any kind of sympathy with their causes. Quite the opposite really. I surely have more beliefs in common with “Based Stickman,” the Alt-Right Leonidas who loves Ron Paul and preaches self-defense and restraint on the battlefield, than I do with “Moldylocks,” the Antifa Joan of Arc and self-styled scalp-hunter. The same would probably be true about any left/right pair of Berkeley belligerents picked at random.

I only dwell on the dynamics of the nationalist right, because, tragically, more liberty-minded people have been drawn to that militant-collectivist camp than to the militant-collectivist camp of the socialist left. If there is any hope of reversing this dangerous escalation of political street violence—of nipping it in the bud while it is still in its incipient stages—it will involve right-leaning professed liberty-lovers stepping away from the brink of civil turmoil, which always lifts up anti-liberty militant factions, including that ultimate anti-liberty faction, the Deep State.

The Deep State, and perhaps the Donald himself, would just love to use mass civil unrest as an excuse to grant itself emergency powers. And sufficient civil strife will frighten the broader American public enough that they would be eager to accept that excuse. Escalating political violence could elevate tensions to the point that it would only take a single sensational terror attack to bring us to the martial-law tipping point. People tire of Nazi comparisons, but the Weimar collapse is an indispensably vivid illustration of a highly predictable pattern: nationalist-communist political violence, Reichstag Fire, Reichstag Fire Decree, the death of German liberty. Look it up.

To actual liberty-loving veterans of the Battle of Berkeley, some of your militant-nationalist allies might actually welcome such a development, especially with Trump in office, but would you? Do you really think such a state will only crush the freedoms of your political enemies, and not eventually come for your own?

As American freedom is snatched away completely by enemies wielding a public mandate and military-grade weapons, as opposed to a widely-reviled gaggle of ragamuffins wielding trash cans and flagpoles, will you take comfort that, at the beginning of it all, at least you stood up to those damn dirty lefties, and that they were the ones who started it anyway?

There are countless ways to promote liberty, but civil strife is not one of them. And it’s never too early to de-escalate. The Non-Battle of Auburn, and not any of the Battles of Berkeley, demonstrated how to truly champion liberty.

dan-sanchezDan Sanchez

Dan Sanchez is Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writings are collected at DanSanchez.me.

This article was originally published on FEE.org and may be freely distributed, subject to a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which requires that credit be given to the author. Read the original article.

The “Battle of Berkeley” Is a Bad Sign for Liberty – Article by Dan Sanchez

The “Battle of Berkeley” Is a Bad Sign for Liberty – Article by Dan Sanchez

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The New Renaissance Hat
Dan Sanchez
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Just how close are we to repeating the political violence of interwar Germany? How bad is it, and how bad can it get?

Populist-right demonstrators and radical-left protesters clashed in Berkeley, California, on April 16, 2017. The belligerents used such weapons as fists, feet, rocks, pepper spray, smoke bombs, barricades, and a trash dumpster/battering ram. There was one reported non-lethal stabbing.

At one point, the left-radicals ill-advisedly threw a smoke bomb while they themselves were standing downwind. The smoke wafted back in their faces causing them to flee. Today, right-populists are crowing online about having “won the Battle of Berkeley,” because, after a concerted charge, they managed to seize and hold a major downtown street.

Berkeley has become a favorite battleground for these budding political street warriors. Two months ago, a scheduled speech at UC Berkeley by Alt-Right darling Milo Yiannopoulos speech was canceled due to riots, arson, and assaults on Milo-supporters. Weeks later, a “March 4 Trump” was held off-campus in Berkeley, and this too was attacked by militant leftists, using metal pipes, baseball bats, two-by-fours, and bricks.

Yesterday, the occasion was another pro-Trump rally in Berkeley celebrating “Patriot’s Day.” As usual, it was the leftists who were the main instigators. That doesn’t alter the fact that these gradually-escalating street conflicts signal a two-pronged threat to liberty.

Nationalists Versus Communists

The brawls seem like a half-hearted, semi-play-acting reenactment of the street fights of Germany’s Spartacist uprising of 1919. The “Spartacists” were Marxist insurgents who sought to overthrow the new Weimar government, take power themselves, and expropriate the bourgeoisie. The government, which itself was made up of milder Marxists, relied on nationalist militias called Freikorps to crush the uprising. Then, as yesterday, nationalists trounced communists in the streets. Yet this did not yield a happy ending.

As Ludwig von Mises points out in Omnipotent Government, when the Freikorps first arose, they were modeled after the armed bands of communist revolutionaries that they would later suppress.

“The November Revolution brought a resurgence of a phenomenon that had long before disappeared from German history. Military adventurers formed armed bands or Freikorps and acted on their own behalf. The communist revolutionaries had inaugurated this method, but soon the nationalists adopted and perfected it. Dismissed officers of the old army called together demobilized soldiers and maladjusted boys and offered their protection to the peasants menaced by raids of starving townsfolk and to the population of the eastern frontiers suffering from Polish and Lithuanian guerrilla invasions. The landlords and the farmers provided them in return for their services with food and shelter.”

The Freikorps, like today’s budding right-wing street militias, arose in response to leftist aggression. That didn’t make them any less dangerous. Mises continued:

“When the condition which had made their interference appear useful changed these gangs began to blackmail and to extort money from landowners, businessmen, and other wealthy people. They became a public calamity. The government did not dare to dissolve them. Some of the bands had fought bravely against the communists. Others had successfully defended the eastern provinces against the Poles and Lithuanians. They boasted of these achievements, and the nationalist youth did not conceal their sympathy for them.”

The Road to Nuremberg

These Freikorps were then integrated into the army, and the problem of rival armed bands subsided for a while, although it did not disappear. As Mises wrote:

“War and civil war, and the revolutionary mentality of the Marxians and of the nationalists, had created such a spirit of brutality that the political parties gave their organizations a military character. Both the nationalist Right and the Marxian Left had their armed forces. These party troops were, of course, entirely different “from the free corps formed by nationalist hotspurs and by communist radicals. Their members were people who had their regular jobs and were busy from Monday to Saturday noon. On weekends they would don their uniforms and parade with brass bands, flags, and often with their firearms. They were proud of their membership in these associations but they were not eager to fight; they were not animated by a spirit of aggression. Their existence, their parades, their boasting, and the challenging speeches of their chiefs were a nuisance but not a serious menace to domestic peace.

After the failure of the revolutionary attempts of Kapp in March, 1920, that of Hitler and Ludendorff in November, 1923, and of various communist uprisings, of which the most important was the Holz riot in March, 1921, Germany was on the way back to normal conditions. The free corps and the communist gangs began slowly to disappear from the political stage. They still waged some guerrilla warfare with each other and against the police. But these fights degenerated more and more into gangsterism and rowdyism. Such riots and the plots of a few adventurers could not endanger the stability of the social order.” [Emphasis added.]

But then, feeling threatened by the continued existence and activity of nationalist armed bands, the embattled socialist government created a new armed force consisting of loyal Marxists. As Mises explains, this caused many in the public to throw their support behind Adolf Hitler’s personal militia, the Nazi Storm Troopers.

“But these Storm Troopers were very different from the other armed party forces both of the Left and of the Right. Their members were not elderly men who had fought in the first World War and who now were eager to hold their jobs in order to support their families. The Nazi Storm Troopers were, as the free corps had been, jobless boys who made a living from their fighting. They were available at every hour of every day, not merely on weekends and holidays. It was doubtful whether the party forces—either of the Left or the Right—would be ready to fight when seriously attacked. It was certain that they would never be ready to wage a campaign of aggression. But Hitler’s troops were pugnacious; they were professional brawlers. They would have fought for their Führer in a bloody civil war if the opponents of Nazism had not yielded without resistance in 1933.” [Emphasis added.]

And the rest is History Channel programming. Once in power, the nationalist brawlers proved to be just as deadly foes to liberty as the communists they trounced in the streets and drove from power.

It’s Never Too Early to De-Escalate

We’re a long way from Weimar. The Alt-Knight and his merry band are a far cry from the brutal Storm Troopers. And the black-clad waifs of Antifa are a pale shadow of the homicidal Spartacists. In fact, there is distinctly ridiculous and even comical vibe to the scuffles, which the late, great Will Grigg aptly described as “political cosplay.” But these things have a way of escalating. The foot soldiers of the Spartacists and Storm Troopers may have gone through a harmless, posturing early phase as well. As Grigg wrote:

“…through political cosplay people can become habituated into thinking in eliminationist terms: The “other side” is not merely gravely mistaken, but irreducibly evil, and since reason is unavailing the only option that remains is slaughter.”

He also warned:

Unlike the wholesale violence that our country saw in the late 1960s and early 1970s, contemporary street-level political conflict is heavy on posturing and pretense and light on actual bloodshed – but it does whet degenerate appetites that will grow to dangerous proportions as times get leaner and meaner.

Just as the right-populists were not content to accept their “defeat” in the First Battle of Berkeley, the left-radicals will not just lick their wounds after the Third Battle of Berkeley. The right is reporting chatter among the left of bringing firearms next time. Such militarization will only breed more polarization and radicalization on the left and the right, both which are driven by a desire to wield state power. And it will provide the police state with a welcome excuse to further assault our already-decimated liberties.

The left-wing combatants claim to be anarchists, and yet are furthering centralized power. The right-wing combatants claim to be for liberty, and yet are putting liberty in danger. If these conflicts continue to escalate, no matter which side “wins,” liberty will lose.

EDIT (4/18/17): Some of the interesting responses to this article made me realize one of the key problems. Too many people are more anti-leftists and anti-communists than they are anti-leftism and anti-communism. For them, it’s more about the enemy tribes that hold pernicious ideas than the pernicious ideas themselves. This breeds a tribal warfare mentality that will only make things worse.

dan-sanchez

Dan Sanchez

Dan Sanchez is Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writings are collected at DanSanchez.me.

This article was originally published on FEE.org and may be freely distributed, subject to a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which requires that credit be given to the author. Read the original article.

The Real Meaning of the 1914 Christmas Truce – Article by Ron Paul

The Real Meaning of the 1914 Christmas Truce – Article by Ron Paul

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The New Renaissance Hat
Ron Paul
December 28, 2014
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One hundred years ago last week, on Christmas Eve, 1914, German and British soldiers emerged from the horrors of World War One trench warfare to greet each other, exchange food and gifts, and to wish each other a Merry Christmas. What we remember now as the “Christmas Truce” began with soldiers singing Christmas carols together from in the trenches. Eventually the two sides climbed out of the trenches and met in person. In the course of this two-day truce, which lasted until December 26, 1914, the two sides also exchanged prisoners, buried their dead, and even played soccer with each other.
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How amazing to think that the celebration of the birth of the Prince of Peace could bring a brief pause in one of the most destructive wars in history. How sad that it was not to last.

The Christmas Truce showed that given the choice, people do not want to be out fighting and killing each other. It is incredibly damaging to most participants in war to face the task of killing their fellow man. That is one reason we see today an epidemic of PTSD and suicides among US soldiers sent overseas on multiple deployments.

The Christmas Truce in 1914 was joyous for the soldiers, but it was dangerous for the political leadership on both sides. Such fraternization with the “enemy” could not be tolerated by the war-makers. Never again was the Christmas Truce repeated on such a scale, as the governments of both sides explicitly prohibited any repeat of such a meeting. Those who had been greeting each other had to go back to killing each other on orders from those well out of harm’s way.

As much as national governments would like to stamp out such humanization of the “enemy,” it is still the case today that soldiers on the ground will meet and share thoughts with those they are meant to be killing. Earlier this month, soldiers from opposing sides of the Ukraine civil war met in eastern Ukraine to facilitate the transfer of supplies and the rotation of troops. They shook hands and wished that the war would be over. One army battalion commander was quoted as saying at the meeting, “I think it’s a war between brothers that nobody wants. The top brass should sort things out. And us? We are soldiers, we do what we’re told.”

I am sure these same sentiments exist in many of the ongoing conflicts that are pushed by the governments involved – and in many cases by third-party governments seeking to benefit from the conflict.

The encouraging message we should take from the Christmas Truce of 100 years ago is that given the opportunity, most humans do not wish to kill each other. As Nazi leader Hermann Goering said during the Nuremberg war crimes trials, “naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany.” But, as he added, “the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

This is where our efforts must be focused. To oppose all war propaganda perpetrated by governments against the will of the people.

Ron Paul, MD, is a former three-time Republican candidate for U. S. President and Congressman from Texas.

This article is reprinted with permission from the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

How Wilson and the Fed Extended the Great War – Article by Brendan Brown

How Wilson and the Fed Extended the Great War – Article by Brendan Brown

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Brendan Brown
November 9, 2014
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As the world reflects on the incomprehensible horror of the Great War which erupted 100 years ago there is a question which goes unasked in the media coverage. How was there no peace deal between the belligerents in 1915 or at latest 1916 once it became clear to all — especially after the Battle of the Somme — that the conflict had developed into a stalemate and holocaust of youth?

While there had been some early hopes for peace in 1916, they quickly evaporated as it became clear that the British government would not agree to a compromise deal. The political success of those who opposed compromise was based to a considerable degree on the argument that soon the US would enter the conflict on the Entente’s (Britain and France) side.

Although the US had allowed the Entente (but not the Central Powers) to access Wall Street without restriction during the first two years of the war, the historical evidence shows that President Wilson had been inclined to threaten Britain with the ending of its access to vital US market financing for its war effort if it failed to negotiate seriously for peace. But Wilson was dissuaded from urging peace on the negotiators by his political adviser Colonel House.

A less well-known story is the role of the then-newly created Fed (which opened its doors in 1914) and its allies within the Wilson administration in facilitating Entente finance. Two prominent Fed members — Paul Warburg and Adolph Miller — had fought a rear-guard campaign seeking to restrict their new institution from discounting trade bills or buying acceptances (largely financing munitions) issued by the belligerents (in practice, the Entente Powers). But, they had been thwarted by the persistence of the New York Fed chief Benjamin Strong (closely allied to J.P. Morgan and others who were gaining tremendously from arranging loans to France and Britain) and the Treasury Secretary McAdoo, the son-in-law of President Wilson. (McAdoo, whose railroad company had been bailed out personally by J.P. Morgan, was also a voting member of the Federal Reserve Board).

Milton Friedman has argued that the creation of the Federal Reserve made no difference to the US monetary and economic outcomes during the period of neutrality (up until March 1917) or during the US participation in the war (to November 1918). The difference, Friedman contended, came afterward when the Fed allowed rapid monetary growth to continue for a further year. Under the pre-Fed regime, Friedman argues, the US would also have experienced huge inflows of gold during the period of neutrality and under existing procedures (for official US gold purchases), and these would have fueled rapid growth of high-powered money and hence inflation. In the period of war participation, the Treasury would have printed money with or without the Fed (as indeed had occurred during the Civil War).

There are two big caveats to consider about Friedman’s “the Fed made no difference” case. The first is that the administration and Wall Street’s ability to facilitate the flow of finance to the Entente would have been constricted in the absence of backdoor support (via trade acceptances and bills) by the new “creature of Jekyll Island” (the Fed). The second is that both camps within the Fed (Benjamin Strong on the one hand, and Paul Warburg and Adolph Miller on the other) were united in welcoming the accumulation of gold on their new institutions’ balance sheet. They saw this as strengthening the metallic base of the currency (both were concerned that the Fed’s creation should not be the start of a journey toward fiat money) and also as a key factor in their aims to make New York the number-one financial center in the world, displacing London in that role.

Without those hang-ups it is plausible that the US would have trodden the same path as Switzerland in dealing with the flood of gold from the belligerents and its inflationary potential. That path was the suspension of official gold purchases and effective temporary floating of the gold price. The latter might have slumped to say $10–14 per ounce from the then official level of $21 and correspondingly the dollar (like the Swiss franc) would have surged, while Sterling and the French franc come under intense downward pressure. In effect the Entente Powers would not have been able to finance their war expenditures by dumping gold in the US and having this monetized by the Fed and Treasury — a process which effectively levied an inflation tax on US citizens.

This suspension of gold purchases would have meant a better prospect of there being a gold-standard world being recreated in the ensuing peace. The exhaustion of British gold holdings during the war ruled out the resurrection of Sterling as gold money. Its so-called return to gold in 1925 was in fact a fixed exchange rate link to the US dollar. The US would have been spared much of the cumulative wartime inflation. The Fed would not have been so flush with gold that it could have tolerated the big monetary binge through 1919 before ultimately being forced by a decline in its free gold position to suddenly tighten policy sharply and induce the Great Recession of 1920–21. That episode led on to the Fed focusing during the 1920s on modern monetary management (counter-cyclical policy changes and price stabilization). The consequences of that focus, ultimately fatal to the gold order, were the Great Boom and the Great Depression.

Brendan Brown is an associated scholar of the Mises Institute and is author of Euro Crash: How Asset Price Inflation Destroys the Wealth of Nations and The Global Curse of the Federal Reserve: Manifesto for a Second Monetarist Revolution. See Brendan Brown’s article archives.

This article was published on Mises.org and may be freely distributed, subject to a Creative Commons Attribution United States License, which requires that credit be given to the author.

The Dawn of the Surveillance State – Article by Gary McGath

The Dawn of the Surveillance State – Article by Gary McGath

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Gary McGath
September 18, 2014
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We think of mass surveillance as a product of modern technology—applying computing power to scoop up communications and metadata in bulk. But large-scale spying on Americans got its real start in 1917, when the United States entered World War I. The government wanted to build up an apparatus to crush all criticism.

In his 1917 Flag Day speech, President Wilson claimed that Germany had “filled our unsuspecting communities with vicious spies and conspirators and sought to corrupt the opinion of our people in their own behalf.” He warned, “Woe be to the man or group of men that seeks to stand in our way in this day of high resolution.” The next day, Congress gave teeth to his warning with the Espionage Act, which criminalized opposition to the war. In 1918, the Sedition Act made prohibitions on dissent even broader.

The apparatus for searching out people with supposedly disloyal tendencies was already in place. The Council of National Defense, created in 1916, had begun urging the states to create their own Councils of Defense. Some of them paid close attention to everything people were saying and promoted persecution of anything sounding disloyal or foreign. In Iowa, elderly women were jailed for speaking German over the telephone, and a pastor was imprisoned for giving part of a funeral service in Swedish.

In Oklahoma, Governor Robert L. Williams formed an extralegal state Council of Defense, which in turn created an Oklahoma Loyalty Bureau, employing secret service agents to find sedition in communities. The Tulsa County Council of Defense formed a secret organization to look for dissidents.

The Bureau of Investigation (later called the FBI) got into the act, creating the American Protective League (APL)—a private, quasi-official espionage organization. The APL boasted that it was “organized with approval and operating under the direction of the United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Investigation.” Because it was nominally private, the government didn’t have to take responsibility for its actions. Its 1,200 branches put local public schools under surveillance, checked on people who didn’t buy war bonds, and investigated Lutheran clergymen who didn’t express public support for the war. APL members detained over 40,000 people, opened mail, and raided factories, union halls, and private homes.

The federal government did its own share of outrageous searches and seizures. A 1918 pamphlet, “War-time Prosecutions and Mob Violence,” by the National Civil Liberties Bureau, cites numerous raids, with vast amounts of printed materials confiscated, from September 1917 onward. The International Workers of the World (IWW) and the International Bible Students’ Association—a branch of what’s now known as the Jehovah’s Witnesses—were targeted repeatedly.

The Feds also took control of all radio stations when the United States joined the war. Amateur radio was shut down, along with many commercial stations. In 1918 the federal government nationalized telephone and telegraph service, an act that Postmaster General Burleson declared necessary “to prevent communication by spies and other public enemies.”

Most of the surveillance apparatus was dismantled after the war was over, and communications returned to private hands. However, the Sedition Act, which made it all possible, still remains on the books, though in a more limited form. In 1971, it was used to indict Daniel Ellsberg for leaking the Pentagon Papers, which showed that the government had been systematically misleading the public about the Vietnam War. In 2013, it was the basis for bringing charges against Edward Snowden.

And even if most of the organizations created during this wave of hysteria are now defunct, as historian Lon Strauss has written, we can “see the foundation that influenced subsequent decisions…. There’s a direct connection with the type of surveillance state that produced the NSA; that foundation was created in the First World War.”

Mass surveillance might be grabbing headlines, but unfortunately, it’s nothing new.

Gary McGath is a freelance writer and a former editor of the Thomas Paine Review.

This article was originally published by The Foundation for Economic Education.
The History of Early Military Airplanes (2005) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

The History of Early Military Airplanes (2005) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
July 29, 2014
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Note from the Author: This essay was originally written in 2005 and published on Associated Content (subsequently, Yahoo! Voices) in 2007.  The essay received over 600 views on Associated Content / Yahoo! Voices, and I seek to preserve it as a valuable resource for readers, subsequent to the imminent closure of Yahoo! Voices. Therefore, this essay is being published directly on The Rational Argumentator for the first time.  
***
~ G. Stolyarov II, July 29, 2014

**

In 1900, the first Zeppelin airships made their successful flights in Germany, and, in 1903, the Wright Brothers designed the first airplane powered by an internal combustion engine. Not long after, the military advantages of aircraft became evident.

The first use of airplanes in combat occurred in 1911, when the Italian Army used a German monoplane to drop grenades on Turkish fortifications in Libya. In 1912, the Italians also initiated the practice of using Zeppelin airships as bombers. In November, 1912, the Vickers company in Britain equipped its “Experimental Fighting Biplane 1” with a Vickers machine gun, thus creating the first fighter plane.

Despite these advancements, the value of aircraft was greatly underrated at the beginning of the First World War, when great powers such as France only had 140 functional aircraft, most of them serving only reconnaissance roles and not equipped with any weapons powerful enough to engage in air-to-air combat.

During the course of the war, this would change dramatically. By the end of the war, France had produced some 68,000 aircraft, 52,000 of which had been lost in battle, giving an indication as to the immense danger of early air combat and the pitiful life expectancy of early aircraft pilots.

During the war, the British began to field the first efficient bombers, the Handley-Page O/400 planes, which could carry 900 kilograms of explosives and fly at 156 kilometers per hour for as long as eight hours, rendering these planes immensely useful at bombarding strategic German positions and even cities far beyond the front lines.

The early air wars required immense dexterity, marksmanship, and luck on the part of the pilots, and expert pilots were prized by all sides. An “ace,” or someone who had downed five planes or more, was given immense honors and publicity, no matter what side he fought on, and names such as that of Manfred von Richthofen, the “Red Baron,” who had shot down 80 Allied planes during the war, achieved the status of legend.

Despite the extreme dangers of piloting aircraft, the task became seen as an extremely prestigious assignment by soldiers, especially given the “clean” nature of the fighting and the prospects of each night returning to comfortable accommodations near the airfields. Compared to the muck and mass carnage of trench warfare, as well as the expendability of individual ground troops, the daily lives of aircraft pilots were indeed far more pleasant, if only relatively so.

Sources:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWmachineguns.htm

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi694.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWbertha.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bertha

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortar_%28weapon%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Gun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howitzer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krupp

http://www.firstworldwar.com/atoz/bigbertha.htm

http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/K/Krupp.asp

http://www.fluxeuropa.com/war/evolution.htm

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blgrenade.htm

http://va.essortment.com/handgrenadeh_rgor.htm

http://www.firstworldwar.com/airwar/summary.htm

http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/aces.htm

http://www.northstar.k12.ak.us/schools/ryn/projects/inventors/gatling/gatling.html

http://www.vickersmachinegun.org.uk/

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWbrowning.htm

http://www.firstworldwar.com/atoz/mgun_mg.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank

The History of Mortars, Hand Grenades, and Tanks During the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries (2005) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

The History of Mortars, Hand Grenades, and Tanks During the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries (2005) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
July 29, 2014
******************************
Note from the Author: This essay was originally written in 2005 and published on Associated Content (subsequently, Yahoo! Voices) in 2007.  The essay received over 3,600 views on Associated Content / Yahoo! Voices, and I seek to preserve it as a valuable resource for readers, subsequent to the imminent closure of Yahoo! Voices. Therefore, this essay is being published directly on The Rational Argumentator for the first time.  
***
~ G. Stolyarov II, July 29, 2014

**

Innovations in weapons technology produced improved designs of mortars and hand grenades during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The tank emerged as a weapon during World War I and, from its modest beginnings, would emerge as a formidable force on the battlefield.

The Mortar

Though mortars, muzzle-loading cannons firing low-velocity projectiles at short ranges, had been used since the 15th century, early mortars were primitive, unwieldy (often too heavy to move), and fired at impractically slow rates.

The first portable mortars saw action in the American Civil War, especially in defense of Union railroad and supply lines. During World War I, the mortar’s size was further adjusted to enable a single individual to carry and operate it, thus leading to mass production, distribution, and use of these weapons. Due to their high angle of fire, mortars could often penetrate into narrow trenches close by, which artillery had no chance of hitting, thus being effective means of capturing enemy positions without sending infantry in costly head-on assaults.

Hand Grenades

Primitive hand grenades first saw use in the 15th century, but their employment largely ceased after 1750, as they were quite cumbersome to manage and damaged their users as often as their enemies. As the objectives of war became more closely identified with the infliction of mass casualties in close combat, the grenade was reintroduced and used on a large scale during the Russo-Japanese War and in World War I.

At first, the grenade’s safety record remained atrocious, as there was no mechanism to protect the thrower, and early grenades were even nicknamed “jam bombs,” as they were often constructed by soldiers on the front lines from tin cans formerly holding jam, which the soldiers then filled with stones and gunpowder and attached a fuse at the end. In 1915, the Englishman William Mills invented the Mills Bomb, the first grenade with a safety pin to protect the user. During World War I, the French also invented the “pineapple” design of the grenade largely prevalent today, while the Germans manufactured the “stick” grenade, elongated for more effective throwing.

The Tank

During World War I, the tank was not an optimally efficient weapon, due to the early tanks’ lack of firepower, armor, and maneuverability in the rough terrain of no man’s land. However, the basic concept of the tank was devised during that time and later improvements in tank equipment, speed, and armor would render trench warfare obsolete. The first tank, the Mark I, was developed by the British Army in 1915 and saw action in the Battle of the Somme on September 15, 1916. The first French tank, the Schneider CA1, was developed in 1917.

The British and French first used a mass combination of tanks in a successful attack during the Battle of Cambrai on November 20, 1917. Germans did not extensively pursue tank technology in World War I, but did design armor-piercing bullets that could demolish the flimsy metal coverings of early tanks. Early tanks also lacked the gun turrets typically associated with them and usually had several smaller guns embedded in their main body. Later Allied tanks were given a rhomboid shape and stronger armor to allow them to deflect or stop German bullets with greater ease. Tanks were part of an emerging new technological paradigm that transformed wars of stalemate and attrition to wars of maneuver, speed, and even greater mechanization during the mid-20th century.

Sources:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWmachineguns.htm

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi694.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWbertha.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bertha

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortar_%28weapon%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Gun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howitzer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krupp

http://www.firstworldwar.com/atoz/bigbertha.htm

http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/K/Krupp.asp

http://www.fluxeuropa.com/war/evolution.htm

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blgrenade.htm

http://va.essortment.com/handgrenadeh_rgor.htm

http://www.firstworldwar.com/airwar/summary.htm

http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/aces.htm

http://www.northstar.k12.ak.us/schools/ryn/projects/inventors/gatling/gatling.html

http://www.vickersmachinegun.org.uk/

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWbrowning.htm

http://www.firstworldwar.com/atoz/mgun_mg.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank

The History of Big Guns in World War I (2005) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

The History of Big Guns in World War I (2005) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
July 26, 2014
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Note from the Author: This essay was originally written in 2005 and published  on Associated Content (subsequently, Yahoo! Voices) in 2007.  The essay earned over 5,400 page views on Associated Content/Yahoo! Voices, and I seek to preserve it as a valuable resource for readers, subsequent to the imminent closure of Yahoo! Voices. Therefore, this essay is being published directly on The Rational Argumentator for the first time.  
***
~ G. Stolyarov II, July 26, 2014

*

Perhaps the most dramatic demonstration of the increase in the sheer force that could be unleashed on the battlefield due to technological improvements of the early 20th century can be seen in the development of the large-scale artillery pieces up to and during the time of World War I.

The “big guns” of the time period were immensely heavy, needed to be transported in multiple parts (each part often occupying the equivalent of several train wagons), and time-consuming to assemble on the site of firing. Nevertheless, their range, far exceeding the extent of a human being’s sight and reaching many kilometers past the enemy’s front line, as well as the sheer impact wrought by their massive shells, was thought to compensate for their size and awkwardness.

The most famous of the big guns of World War I were employed by the German Army and manufactured by the Krupp family firm, the largest German weapons producer, owned by one of the wealthiest families in the world. The Krupp firm produced numerous models of howitzers, or long-range, large-caliber artillery capable of firing both at high and low trajectories.

The famous howitzer, Big Bertha, was designed 1904 for the Krupp firm by the inventor Louis Gauthmann. The Big Bertha was a movable siege mortar capable of firing projectiles weighing 820 kilograms for as far as 15 kilometers, at as high a trajectory as 80 degrees (thus explaining the mortar designation). Four Big Berthas were produced in all, and used in the German offensive of 1914. Their most distinguished use, however, was in August of 1916, during the German assault on the twelve-ringed fortifications at Liege, Belgium. Over the course three days (from the 12th to the 15th of August) two Big Berthas were installed within firing range of the fortress and inflicted such massive devastation as to bring about either the destruction or surrender of all the Belgian defensive positions in the area.

While the Big Bertha was renowned for its sheer mass and firepower, other German big guns of the time period also focused on achieving firing distances that far exceeded that of Big Bertha. These weapons were called “railway guns,” as they were designed to be mounted on and supported by railroad tracks for greater stability and more efficient assembly, since their parts were delivered to the battlefield by train and could be put together on the precise spot of arrival.

A common railway gun design was known as the “Long Max,” which the Germans used to shell French positions some 25-30 kilometers behind the front lines. However, the Germans were able to modify the Long Max design to create a far longer-ranged weapon, the famous Paris Gun (or the Kaiser Wilhelm Gun), which could fire on the city of Paris itself from the German front lines. Though its shell was substantially smaller than that fired by the Big Bertha, weighing only 92 kilograms, it could be hurled 130 kilometers from the gun, and reached heights as far as 40 kilometers above ground level, thus making the shells fired by the gun the first man-made objects to reach the stratosphere and there encounter minimal air resistance, enabling them to travel at supersonic speeds.

ParisGunThe Paris Gun was first installed on March 21, 1918, and required some 80 crewmen to assemble and operate. It fired some 320-367 shells during its lifetime, killing 250 people, injuring 620, and causing considerable property damage in Paris. Though its shells were fairly small and could not be aimed precisely at targets smaller than city size, the gun’s primary purpose was psychological, to convince the French government and citizens that they were not safe from the German army even in their capital. The gun proved powerless to stop the Allied advance of 1918, however, and the Germans destroyed it during their retreat, to prevent its design and parts from falling into Allied hands. The Paris Gun was the largest weapon ever built up to its time and would only be exceeded in caliber by German railway guns of World War II.

Sources:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWmachineguns.htm

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi694.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWbertha.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bertha

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortar_%28weapon%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Gun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howitzer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krupp

http://www.firstworldwar.com/atoz/bigbertha.htm

http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/K/Krupp.asp

http://www.fluxeuropa.com/war/evolution.htm

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blgrenade.htm

http://va.essortment.com/handgrenadeh_rgor.htm

http://www.firstworldwar.com/airwar/summary.htm

http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/aces.htm

http://www.northstar.k12.ak.us/schools/ryn/projects/inventors/gatling/gatling.html

http://www.vickersmachinegun.org.uk/

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWbrowning.htm

http://www.firstworldwar.com/atoz/mgun_mg.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank

A Short History of German Colonialism in Africa (2003) – Essay by G. Stolyarov II

A Short History of German Colonialism in Africa (2003) – Essay by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
July 22, 2014

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Note from the Author: This essay was originally written in 2003 and published in two parts on Associated Content (subsequently, Yahoo! Voices) in 2007.  The essay earned over 11,000 page views on Associated Content/Yahoo! Voices, and I seek to preserve it as a valuable resource for readers, subsequent to the imminent closure of Yahoo! Voices. Therefore, this essay is being published directly on The Rational Argumentator for the first time.  ***
***
~ G. Stolyarov II, July 22, 2014
***

Four major regions of Sub-Saharan Africa had been colonized by Germany. They are today’s Tanzania, Namibia, Togo, and Cameroon.

Tanzania was acquired via the efforts of Dr. Carl Peters of the German Colonization Society from 1884 to 1885. Promising protectorate status to the various tribes inhabiting its territory, Peters rapidly accomplished the subordination of the realm to Kaiser Wilhelm I.

Namibia was purchased by Germany shortly after the 1884 Berlin Conference. Its de facto occupation began in 1889, when 25 German troops in tourist garb, under the leadership of Major Curt of Francois, crossed through British territory near the port of Walvis Bay and occupied the colonial capital of Winterhoek (Windhoek).

The first German involvement in Togo occurred in 1884, when Dr. Gustav Nachtigal, a representative of Chancellor Bismarck, signed a protection contract (similar to those undertaken by Peters in Tanzania) with King Mlapa of Togo City. In 1888 Curt of Francois conducted an exploratory journey into the interior, and a permanent research station was founded at Bismarck Castle by Dr. Wolf. In 1891, Germany assumed direct control over Togo.

Cameroon was acquired by Dr. Nachtigal in 1884 via protection contracts with coastal peoples. The remainder of Cameroon was gradually assimilated via expeditions into the southern reaches by Captain Kund in 1887 and Captain Morgen in 1890. In 1898, rich rubber deposits were discovered in southeast Cameroon, and the area became an economic powerhouse.

Major conflicts with natives flared up in Tanzania from 1891 to 1898, when Chief Mkwawa of the Hehe systematically raided German settlements, protectorates, as well as columns of German troops. In 1898, realizing the futility of his struggle, Mkwawa shot himself over a fire.

The Maji Maji Rebellion in 1907 was sparked by natives believing that drinking a sacred water rendered them immune to bullets. They suffered devastating losses at the hands of German artillery.

In Namibia, German forces were considerably crueler to the Herero natives. In 1904, enraged by almost haphazard killing of their people at the hands of settlers, the Hereros erupted in war. They were defeated by the forces of General Lothar von Trotha at the Battle of Hamakari on August 11, 1904, and were pursued through stretches of barren desert until all but 6000 of a population of 50000 perished of starvation or skirmishes. This is widely considered to be the first twentieth-century genocide.

All German possessions in Africa were confiscated by a superior Allied military presence from 1914 to 1918.

German Language and Architecture in the Former German Colonies of Sub-Saharan Africa

***

Although Germany lost possession of its African colonies in 1918, traces of the German language and architecture remain there to this day. A visit to Namibia, Togo, and Tanzania especially will reveal numerous aspects of German culture, legacies of the colonial era.

German is widely spoken in Namibia, although it is not an official language. Namibia also maintains one of the only German-language newspapers in Africa.

All Germans were expelled from Tanzania in 1918 by a decree of the League of Nations. In 1925, many were allowed to return and rebuild their livelihoods. Today, under 2% of Tanzanians are Europeans (many of them Germans) who largely inhabit the urban centers

The Church of Christ in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, was designed by the architect Gottlieb Redecker and constructed in 1907. Its Neo-Romanesque design is almost unique on the entire continent, and within it is contained a valuable replica of Reuben’s’ “Resurrection of the Lazarus.” The original painting had been destroyed in Berlin in 1945.

Other German monuments remain in the former African colonies today. The “Old Fort” in Windhoek is the oldest building in the entire city. It was constructed in 1890 by Curt of Francois and the 32 men under his command and for some time served as a barracks the headquarters of the German occupation in Namibia. Today it is the country’s National Museum.

The Windhoek Railway Station was built in 1912 and is still in use. It is ideal in representing German colonial architecture, and displays in front a locomotive, the Illing, which had traversed a total of 271,000 miles between Swakopmund and Otavi from 1904 to 1939.

Heinitzburg Castle in Windhoek was formerly a lavish private residence constructed for the Count of Schwerin in 1914 by the architect W. Sander. Today it is a prestigious private restaurant.

Of course, no visit to Namibia is complete without visiting the statue of the man who almost single-handedly colonized the country, Major Curt of Francois.

Lome, the capital of Togo, contains a governor’s palace, which was completed in 1898, displaying an adaptation of German aesthetic tastes to the extremes of tropical climate. This building displays many of the simple angular features of indigenous African architecture.

Although the German colonial presence in Africa has been non-existent for the past 89 years, the language and architecture of Germany that remains in Namibia, Togo, and Tanzania serve as reminders of these countries’ past.