Victor Davis Hanson: Germany’s ‘Slow-Motion Suicide’

The Daily Signal Podcast

The Daily Signal

News, Government, Politics, Daily News

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 13 February 2025

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

At the height of World War II, Henry Morgenthau, treasury secretary under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, proposed a plan to deliberately deindustrialization, depopulate, and disarm postwar Germany. The Morgenthau Plan, as it was known, would transition Germany back to an agrarian society, making the prospect of future war unimaginable. Although Morgenthau’s ideas would never see the light of day, now, more than 80 years later, Europe’s powerhouse is poised to embrace this grim reality. “Germany represents the powerhouse, traditionally, of the European economy, and even culture, and it’s starting to implode,” warns Victor Davis Hanson in this edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words.” “They only have about 125 attack aircraft. They have very few armored vehicles. Their active military is only about 180,000 soldiers. They have 84 million people in the country. The fertility rate is getting very close to 1.4. … “They have had a million to 2 million illegal aliens just prance into Germany, especially during the last years of the Merkel chancellorship. In terms of percentage of foreign-born, Germany has more foreign-born than does the United States, which doesn't have a border in the south, at least until Donald Trump comes in.” For Victor’s latest thoughts, go to: https://victorhanson.com/ Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new video drops: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHqkXbgqrDrDVInBMSoGQgQ The Daily Signal cannot continue to tell stories like this one without the support of our viewers: https://secured.dailysignal.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:30.1	Germany, for example, has been systematically shutting down its nuclear plants and for a while
0:35.8	its natural gas electrical generation plants.
0:38.8	But the net result of all of this deliberate turn to wind and solar at the expense of fossil fuels
0:45.2	and nuclear is that it cost about four times more to use electricity in Germany than it does
0:51.2	on average throughout the United States. That's not the only problem.
0:55.0	Germany represents the powerhouse traditionally of the European economy and even culture,
1:00.0	and it's starting to implode.
1:02.0	Hi, I'm Victor Davis-Hansson for the Daily Signal.
1:18.0	Today I'd like to talk about the crisis facing Europe, specifically its self-impulsion across the spectrum, energy, population, fertility, defense.
1:30.6	Germany, for example, has been systematically shutting down its nuclear plants, and for a while
1:36.4	its natural gas electrical generation plants.
1:40.0	It's relying, believe it or not, more on oil and coal.
1:43.2	But the net result of all of this deliberate turn to wind and solar at the expense of fossil fuels and nuclear is that it cost about four times more to use electricity in Germany than it does on average throughout the United States.
1:59.6	That's not the only problem. Germany is deindustrializing, and by that I mean it's losing about 200,000 jobs in its auto industry
2:09.6	due to these high energy prices and regulations.
2:12.6	Its green mandates, especially electric vehicle mandates,
2:16.6	have revolutionized the car industry
	...

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