Walter Benjamin 1940 On the Concept of History

V

The true picture of the past whizzes by. Only as a picture, which flashes its final farewell in the moment of its recognizability, is the past to be held fast. “The truth will not run away from us” – this remark by Gottfried Keller denotes the exact place where historical materialism breaks through historicism’s picture of history. For it is an irretrievable picture of the past, which threatens to disappear with every present, which does not recognize itself as meant in it. - Walter Benjamin

Benjamin is saying in this quote that historians have an uphill battle that they will ultimately fail at.  History can not be told over in second hand accounts especially when the person is in another time.  People do things at certain times because of the times they are in and the situations that they are dealing with.  Many times historians can not know the whole story of what is going on at that time and they interpret situations incorrectly.  However as the quote says that a picture is only good at the time it is taken, this is saying that even first hand recounts are not a hundred percent accurate.  Many times when we ask people what they experienced in the past they do not fully remember what happened and when we interpret their accounts we are interpreting on false accounts.  I choose this quote because I feel it is sad that this is true.  Historians try to tell the past with the most truth as possible but it is impossible for them to get the whole truth.  We as a nation try to learn from the past and their mistakes, but if we are not getting the whole truth how can we properly learn from our mistakes.          

The Great Dictator

In the Great Dictator Charles Chaplin makes a parody of Hitler.  Chaplin uses Dadaism through out the film to make his points.  He does this even before the United States declares war on Germany.  People around the world knew that Hitler was not a good person but they did not know the full extent of his evil until later.  When Commander Schultz saves the Jewish barber and Hanna he realized that the man who saved his life at the end of WWI was not an Aryan but rather a Jew.  This is showing that the Jewish people were not bad and did not do anything wrong to the Germans and yet they were being killed as if they committed a crime.  Adenoid Hynkel becomes obsessed with taking over the world and there is a scene that we see him jumping on a inflatable globe.  This is to show that Hynkel is trying to take over the world if he does he does accomplish this he will destroy the world and there would be no world to be a dictator over.  Hynkel later in the film continues to kill the Jews and when one of his top men Schultz objects to him he is captured and put into the camps with the Jews.  This show that Hitler killed anyone who opposed him and considered them as if they committed treason.  Hitler did not take to opposition very well and he killed anyone that did. At the end of the film when the barber takes over power and tells the people that it is a new day that they are coming out of the darkness and going into the light.  This is showing that the only way for there to be peace in the world is if Hitler is removed from power and another leader takes over that understood the pain of the people.  Chaplin was telling the American people that Hitler needs to be removed and by the barber talking to Hanna in his speech Chaplin was talking to each person of the public and telling them that they have a responsibility to do something to stop Hitler.       

Walter Benjamin: "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"

Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. This unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence. This includes the changes which it may have suffered in physical condition over the years as well as the various changes in its ownership. The traces of the first can be revealed only by chemical or physical analyses which it is impossible to perform on a reproduction; changes of ownership are subject to a tradition which must be traced from the situation of the original. - Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin is saying in this quote that anytime an artist pants something or draws something and he or she has a meaning of their work, the meaning of the work changes on the perspective of the viewer.  These views change as the times change, what a painting means in the early 20th century could have a very different meaning when someone looks at it in the late 20th century.  For example the swastika in 1900 had a very different meaning that it has now.  Today it is impossible to show the swastika in a good light after all the evil it has attached to it.  

This quote relates to the media today because the media has the power to make interpretations on something and make people believe it.  This is a very powerful power because many people these days do not have the time to look at something in many different ways.  Rather people hears what the media says and they believe it.  However if a person does look at the situation from an objective view they would most probably have a different view than someone else.      

Pain

As a rule one will not have to go far to uncover the pain. Indeed, even the individual is not fully free from pain in this joyful state of security. The artificial check on the elementary forces might be able to prevent violent clashes and to ward off shadows, but it cannot stop the dispersed light with which pain permeates life. The vessel, sealed off from pain’s full flow, is filled drop by drop. Boredom is nothing other than the dissolution of pain in time (p. 13). - Ernst Jünger

At the time Jünger is writing this Germany is looking like they are getting out of the Great Depression that took place five years earlier.  The Nazi took over power and the German people are starting to feel good about their country again.  Jünger is warning the German people that if they think that there is no more pain right now they are mistaken.  The German people need to give themselves to the government in order to allow the government to protect them from pain.  Jünger is saying that conformity is necessary to allow for this protection to take place.  It is boredom which represents not helping the government that causes pain to a person.  They need to help the government in any way the government says. I choose this passage because I feel that when people conform to everything that a government says is the first step to to totalitarianism.  It is governments like the United States that welcome different views and individualism that strive and become great nations.  The first step to stop totalitarianism is the first amendment, and it should never be taken away.  

Night and Fog

As a Jew I have always been told about the horrors of the concentration camps.  I have seen the images from documentaries but, every time I see another picture or another film such as this one it hurts like the first time.  I don't think that we should stop telling the story of the Holocaust because we must never forget what one man can do if given the power.  One thing that always surprises me is that the Nazis understood I feel that what they were doing was inherently wrong.  The reason I feel this way is because they tried to make the camps look nice from an outsider looking in.  They did not want to have to much attention to these camps, in order to do this they made them look nice.      

Triumph of the Will

Before I watched this film I did not have a great understanding of the German's propaganda program.  I knew that they had one but I never saw a film about it I only saw posters of propaganda.  What shocked me the most was how much Hitler wanted to show unity in the film.   I knew that he wanted the German people to feel like equals and he said he was a man of the people but I didn't realize the trouble he went through to show this.  In the film it shows solders without any rank on them to show that all of the military is just as important.  Rudolph Hess said in a speech "The Party is Hitler - and Hitler is Germany just as Germany is Hitler."  Hitler was trying his best to show that he was a regular person.  But as he says these things he also shows that he is better than the average person by flying on planes for travel and having parades.  It's strange how it worked that the German people looked at Hitler as a equal and a super human at the same time. 

State Formation as Organized Crime

Charles Tilly says that the objective for a government to have control over its territories is to have two types of control, internal and external.  The internal control is where the government has direct power of its country that it is in.  However the government needs an external agency to have control over lands that are outside the governments direct control.  This is very similar to what Weber said bout how a government should control its country.  

     The causes that make a country grow in power is war.   "The very activity of extraction, if successful, entailed the elimination, neutralization, or cooptation of the great lord’s local rivals."  In order to have power you can not have other parties in the country try to go against the government.  If this happens it weakens the power of the government, so the government uses violence to stop the upraising.

Politics as a Vocation

"The leadership of a state or of a party by men who (in the economic sense of the word) live exclusively for politics and not off politics means necessarily a ‘plutocratic’ [rule of the wealthy, after the Roman god of wealth and the underworld, Pluto—Prof.] recruitment of the leading political strata. To be sure, this does not mean that such plutocratic leadership signifies at the same time that the politically dominant strata will not also seek to live ‘off’ politics, and hence that the dominant stratum will not usually exploit their political domination in their own economic interest (pp. 85-6)" Max Weber 

     This quote is talking about we need politicians that are either independently wealthy or they get their money only from politics.  Weber says that this is important because government is so big and difficult to run that you need people that are completely invested in politics to run a country.  Politicians that are not full time and have other commitments to deal with can not be effective at their job as a politician.  

     I choose this quote because besides the reason that Weber has for a full time politician I feel that we need both types of people in politics the wealthy and the one that needs the money.  Any country has wealthy people and people that need to work hard to earn a living.  Both of these types of people need to be in politics in order for the government to understand its people's problems.  If there was only one type of politician in government then not all the people would be represented and the ones that are not represented would suffer.   

Article 159

"The right to form unions and to improve conditions at work as well as in the economy is guaranteed to every individual and to all occupations. All agreements and measures limiting or obstructing this right are illegal."

      This article always workers to come together and demand to be treated with respect and given proper working conditions.  Without this right major companies that only care about their bottom line would take advantages of the workers, by not paying them a proper paycheck, not having a safe place to work because it cost to much money to make it safe, and other causes similar to this.  The article also says that it is illegal to stop a union from forming or existing.  These rights are still protected in America and they have done very well.  For example sport leagues have unions for their players.  The NFL players union almost had a lock out a few years ago because they thought they were being taken advantage of  by the owners of the teams. 

Article 62

"No state is represented by more than one delegate in the committees formed by the Reichsrat."

     The Reichsrat is similar to the congress of the United States in that it represents the people of the country in the government.  This article is to make sure that no one state has more of a representation in the government.  This is important because if states have more representation that means they will have more power, with more power they could make laws that benefits their state and not the rest of the country.  This still protected in the Senate of the American government is set up that no one state has more than two representatives in government.      

Luxemburg's Quote

"One thing is certain. The world war is a turning point. It is foolish and mad to imagine that we need only survive the war, like a rabbit waiting out the storm under a bush, in order to fall happily back into the old routine once it is over. The world war has altered the conditions of our struggle and, most of all, it has changed us. Not that the basic law of capitalist development, the life-and-death war between capital and labor, will experience any amelioration. But now, in the midst of the war, the masks are falling and the old familiar visages smirk at us. The tempo of development has received a mighty jolt from the eruption of the volcano of imperialism. The violence of the conflicts in the bosom of society, the enormousness of the tasks that tower up before the socialist proletariat – these make everything that has transpired in the history of the workers’ movement seem a pleasant idyll." 

     In this passage Rosa Luxemburg is telling people that people that WWI was not going to change their fate by itself.  The party had to be proactive in changing their fate for the better or else they would just fade away after the war. This is a very nihilistic theme in the way that Luxemburg is telling the people that they need break away from what they were doing before the war.  Her criticism with capitalism is that if you do not change your way of life, you are left out to dry and it turns people into "working masses of all zones into wage slaves."  Changing to capitalism does not only effect Germany but also the entire world as she wrote: "In Africa and Asia, from the northernmost shores to the tip of South America and the South Seas, the remnant of ancient primitive communist associations, feudal systems of domination, patriarchal peasant economies, traditional forms of craftsmanship are annihilated, crushed by capital; whole peoples are destroyed and ancient cultures flattened." 

We want an authoritarian leader?....NO!

In the past three films we watched I feel that the all three films try to show that the people of Germany do not want an authoritarian leader.  In the first two films the two authority figures Dr. Caligari and Professor Rath in the start of the films they are in charge and in control of all the situations they are in.  As these two films progress these authority figures start losing control of their surroundings and their minds.  I feel that this shows the want to take away the authority figures in Germany.  For the third film, there is no real one authority figure.  Rather for the first time you have the police with a major role.  You have the judges at the end of the film discussing Becert's sentence.  I feel that this shows the want and need for a liberal-democratic society.  The people of Germany wanted to have a say in the decision of the government as shown in the last scene of M, when the judges do not say a sentence but rather leave it unfinished so the public could decide. 

We want an authoritarian leader

     In the film M by Fritz Lang, there is a killer tracking down children.  Beckert is found by the police to be the killer and they try to capture him.  Before the police can capture Beckert another group of criminals catch Beckert, but they do this by breaking the law, torturing  someone, etc.  This mob sets up a mock trial to judge Beckert, but right before they were going to kill him the police come and save him.  To me this movie showed that the people of Germany wanted an authority leader that can bring order to the country.  There were many killers in Germany at the time and the German people wanted the police to start being more active.  The people of Germany also were looking for a liberal-democratic society.  This is shown by the last scene where the judges are deciding whether or not to kill Beckert.   This shows a discussion between the heads of the courts and by not telling the outcome of the discussion I feel Fritz Lang want the public to also be involved in the results and make up the ending in their own heads.  For the question of does Beckert deserve to die, that depends on a case by case situation.  Some people can not be helped in jail and will always be evil, while other people could be helped in jail.  For some reason I feel that Beckert would be able to be helped in jail, so I feel that he should not be killed.

Blue Angel

In the second scene of the movie before Professor Rath enters the class the students are having fun talking with each other.  When the professor is on his way all the students rush to their seats and as he walks in they stand up for him.  This shows that they are afraid of the professor. I believe the professor is representing the government and the class is the public.  The public is scared of the government because they punish people without knowing for sure if they are punishing the correct person.  This is shown when the professor tells a student to clean his book cover for drawing on it even though he did not draw on it.  He also punishes the whole class for one student not knowing how to pronounce a specific word.  This is also to represent the government punishing a group of people as a whole rather than punishing a specific person.  Professor Rath makes the students stand up and sit down for no apparent reason other than to flex his power.  This is a symbol for the government always wanting the public to feel under its power.  They use a fat professor to show that government is fat with power and always wants more.  There are no women in the class which shows that women were not given the chance to be educated and they were looked down upon.  When a student has a picture of Lola he is punished for this.  It says that the culture at the time looked down at women in that type of professions.  I feel the reason the director uses a classroom to show the picture is because some people at the time thought these types of women were bringing down the higher class and society.    

Paragraph 175

Paragraph 175 talks about either having sex with an animal or gay sex will be punished by prison.  After much pressure by the public the law was reformed to allow for some loopholes.  They added two sections of loopholes and the a third section that said the same thing as the original law.  This showed how the times in Germany were trying to change but the government didn't want it to.  There was a struggle between the public and government.  The openness of gay sex was more acceptable at this time as opposed to the 1920's where in the song "The Lavender Song" people would be put in prison for talking about such things.

 

"The Lavender Song" (Das Lila Lied), music by Mischa Spoliansky, lyrics by Kurt Schwabach (1920)

"Round us all up, send us away
that's what you'd really like to do
But we're too strong, proud, unafraid
in fact we almost pity you
You act from fear, why should that be
What is it that you are frightened of
The way that we dress
The way that we meet
The fact that you cannot destroy our love
We're going to win our rights
to lavender days and nights"

"Rund um uns alle auf, senden Sie uns weg
das ist, was Sie wirklich gerne tun
Aber wir sind zu stark, stolz, furchtlos
in der Tat haben wir fast bemitleiden Sie
Sie handeln von Angst, warum sollte das sein
Was ist es, dass Sie der sind verängstigt
Die Art und Weise, dass wir uns kleiden
Die Art und Weise, dass wir uns treffen
Die Tatsache, dass man nicht zerstören unsere Liebe
Wir werden unsere Rechte zu gewinnen
Lavendel zu Tage und Nächte"

    This song talks about the freedoms that we as Americans take for granted.  It talks about freedom of expression, however if you expressed something that the government didn't like you would be put in prison.  These people are saying that they rather be put in prison than not be able to express themselves.  If they are not able to express themselves they feel that they are in a prison already.  They are telling the government that no matter what they do, the public will always express themselves.  I picked this song because as Americans we take the first amendment for granted.  We grew up in a country where freedom of expression is a very serious freedom.  There are many laws that get over turned because and it is the basis of the country and keeping it a free democracy.  Without freedom of expression the government could try to take over our thoughts and be able to control what we do.  

"It's All a Swindle" (Alles Schwindel), by Mischa Spoliansky and Marcellus Schiffer (1931)

"Life's a swindle, yes, it's all a swindle
so get what you can
from your fellow man
Girls and boys today
would rather steal than play
and we don't care
We tell them get your share
Life is short and greed's in season
all mankind has lost its reason
life is good, knock on wood, knock, knock"

"Alles Schwindel, alles schwindel,
überall wohin du guckst
und wohin du spuckst!
Alles ist heut ein Gesindel,
jedes Girl und jeder Boy,
’s wird einem schlecht dabei!
’s wird ein’m schwindlig von dem Schwindel,
alles, alles, alles Schwindel,
unberufen toi! toi! toi!"

     This song talks about the way life was in 1931.  People would steal everything that they could. Children would be taught at a young age that stealing is not just okay, but also its a good thing.  Everybody does it from the politicians who take bribes to the average person on the street.  She is not even regretting what the people are doing she emphasizes this in the last line of the chorus "life is good, knock on wood, knock, knock."  She wants this life style to continue and she asks for Jesus' help to keep it this way.  I choose this song because to me it shows how low a society could become.  When it is accepted that everyone is stealing from anyone they could, you can not have a government that would make rules.  Especially when the politicians are not trust worthy.  I feel this is the fear of many people in countries that are corrupt. 

Henryk Grossman 1881-1950

“What was the year 1929 in the USA and the year 1931 in Germany and England if not a giant breakdown? The working class was not prepared for this. It did not have a Lenin, who awaited and worked towards such a moment. Rather, for decades it heard from Hilferding and Helene Bauer that a breakdown was impossible. Only such a disorientation of the working class made it possible for the ruling class to overcome the panic and to survive the breakdown.”

– Henryk Grossman

     During his life Henryk Grossman was part of a political party starting in high school where he joined the Polish Social Democratic Party(PPSD).  Henryk believed in the working class all of his life and he said that when the depression of America or Germany came it was the working class that broke down and created these depressions.  He says that the ruling class was only able to overcome the depression because of the great breakdown by the working class.  He believed that the working class was the driving force behind the economy of a country.

     I agree with many of what Grossman said, I believe that the working class is the driving force behind an economy.  However I don't think that the working class was the only reason why merica and Germany got out of their depressions.  I believe that it takes all class' to work together and properly in order to make any economy get out of such great breakdowns.  I think Grossman feels that there was no proper leader of the working class, and it is because of this that the class failed which according to him lead to the breakdown.   

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

The scene that I'm going to write about is when Dr. Caligari takes the people at the fair in to his cabinet to show them Cesare who has been sleeping for 25 years.  It shows Dr. Caligari waking Cesare up and controlling his ever move.  This represents leaders of nations that could control their solders and make them do what ever they want.  People in the audience are afraid and some are excited.  Francis is excited at the notion that Cesare could tell the future and when he asks how long he will live, Francis is told till dawn.   At the end of the seen Francis is killed by a shadow.  This to me represents what happens when people questions a dictator, the dictator feels threatened and kills the people who question him.  But they can't be killed during the day, since the dictator doesn't want to be seen as a killer.  On the way home from the fair Francis and Alan seem to forget what Cesare said, which seems to me very odd.  I believe it means to say when people feel safe and they think things are going well they have their guard down.  This is the best time for a dictator with an army to take over and gain power.  Dr. Caligari is portrayed as an ugly old man which plays with the theme of nihilistic themes, that leaders of countries are evil and power hungry.  It is the innocent people who get effected by the evils of men.

Siddhartha passage

Siddhartha answered: "How old, would you think, is our oldest Samana, our venerable teacher?"

Quoth Govinda: "Our oldest one might be about sixty years of age."

And Siddhartha: "He has lived for sixty years and has not reached the nirvana. He'll turn seventy and eighty, and you and me, we will grow just as old and will do our exercises, and will fast, and will meditate. But we will not reach the nirvana, he won't and we won't. Oh Govinda, I believe out of all the Samanas out there, perhaps not a single one, not a single one, will reach the nirvana. We find comfort, we find numbness, we learn feats, to deceive others. But the most important thing, the path of paths, we will not find."

     In this passage Siddhartha is showing Govinda that there is no end result to his religion.  If at age sixty the master, the person who is supposed to be the greatest in living the religion can't achieve nirvana how can a regular person do so.  Siddhartha says that the master will grow as old as eighty and he still won't reach nirvana.  Siddhartha at the end of the passage says that we as a people find comfort thinking that there is meaning to life and we will accomplish something at the end.  But, in reality we can not achieve nirvana.  Religion deceives people in this belief, making them hold on to something that is not real.  The most important thing Siddhartha says is that we will never find the proper way to live life because if we follow our religion we can't achieve the end so we must have taken the wrong path.

     The reason I picked this passage is because I think many people who follow any religion let it be Christianity, Islam, Judaism or any other one have thought about this once in their lives.  We think that our leaders of our religion is not perfect so how can I as a regular person who lives in the "real" world (not the Vatican where the pope is surrounded by Christianity) live up to the expectations of my own beliefs.  I think the way people get by with this problem is that they believe in god being a logical thing (either a human, a spirit, or whatever their specific religion believes god is).  They believe that god understands that we are only humans and we are going to make mistakes and that religion is more of a way of life a path in life that we choose as a person.  Siddhartha would disagree with this because he doesn't have a belief in god and because of that he can't understand people living a religious life.  

Trench Warfare, Otto Dix, 1932

 

"Trench Warfare," Otto Dix, 1932

     Born in Untermhaus, Germany in 1891 to a father who was an iron worker and a mother who was a seamstress.  Otto Dix was exposed to the world of art by his cousin Fritz Amann, where Otto spent many hours in his studio.  In 1910 Otto entered Kunstgewerbeschule in Dresden a school for applied art.  When World War I broke out Otto joined the German army and fought for them until he was wounded in 1918 and was discharged.  Otto was a decorated soldier and fought in many battles such as the Battle of the Somme and earned an Iron Cross.  After he was discharged the weight of seeing so much death during war effected Otto greatly and is shown in many of his works.

     Otto shows the true view of war through a soldiers' point of war, not one which the government want to show its people in order for them to join the military.  He shows death and destruction all around him.  The soldier  in the picture is so in gross by what is around him that there is no escape and he is forced to sleep in it.  An example of a picture of war that the government likes, since it shows glory and pride is shown below.  Otto uses bleak colors to show the darker side of war, while the photo below uses more vibrant colors to try to make people happier about war and wanting to join in to help their country.

People," George Grosz, 1919

"

People," George Grosz, 1919

     Georg Ehrenfried Groß was born in 1901 in Berlin to a father who was a pub owner and a mother who became a keeper of an office after the death of his father when he was eight.  At a young age his cousin convienced George to take a weekly drawing class and in 1909 he went to Dresden Academy of Fine Arts.  In 1914 he went into the military but was hospitalized and discharge in 1915. In 1916 he changed his the spelling of his name to George Grosz, to protest against Germain nationalism and his love for America.  He was fined and arrested multiple times for his anti-Germain art and finally shortly after Hitler came to power Grosz left Germany and went to America.

     In his picture "People" George Grosz portrays different types of people from different social class' walking in a street.  People might think that people in the higher social class would be happier than those in the lower social class.  However he draws the people in all classes having the same facial expression, of tired, worrisome, upset.  I believe he wanted to show the German people that old world art might want to sell you on the fact that the higher social class you are in and the more money that you make, makes you happier.  

Raoul Hausmann

"Dada Conquerors," Raoul Hausmann,  1920

      Born in 1886 in Vienna, Raoul moved to Berlin when he was 14 years old.  He was first introduced to art by his father who was also his first teacher.  In 1908 he enrolled in a private art school in Berlin where he stayed until 1911.  In 1912 Hausmann started  Expressionist prints and took a job as a writer at Walden's magazine, where he first started writing against the art community.  He thought tat the war was a good thing that was needed to clean society.

     In this picture I believe Hausmann is saying Dada art will win out against the old world of art.  In this picture he puts "dada siegt!" in the picture itself.  It shows regular people not noble men but rather working class people.  He shows the real anatomy of a person not a glorified muscular verson of a person. He also shows "real" things in the picture such as a basketball, a shoe, a typewriter, etc.  

Dada Manifesto (1916, Hugo Ball)

"An International word. Just a word, and the word a movement. Very easy to understand. Quite terribly simple. To make of it an artistic tendency must mean that one is anticipating complications. Dada psychology, dada Germany cum indigestion and fog paroxysm, dada literature, dada bourgeoisie, and yourselves, honoured poets, who are always writing with words but never writing the word itself, who are always writing around the actual point. Dada world war without end, dada revolution without beginning, dada, you friends and also-poets, esteemed sirs, manufacturers, and evangelists. Dada Tzara, dada Huelsenbeck, dada m'dada, dada m'dada dada mhm, dada dera dada, dada Hue, dada Tza."

     In this passage of Dada Manifesto, Hugo Ball is telling people how good and important Dada is to the world and to a persons everyday life.  He says that it's not only a psychology but a way of life that people should live.  He tells the people to throw away the thought process that they had before, of sugar coating things.  Instead tell people the truth, in literature, in bourgeoisie and in every aspect of your life.  He talks straight to the people by writing them in the passage "yourselves, honoured poets." 

     I agree with Ball's thinking to a certain degree.  Here in America we tried to set up a government that is transparent with checks and balances.  However there are still some parts in life that should be sugar coated to a degree, for example young children should not have to see the brutality of war.  Sugar coating a bad situation helps people live in bad times, its why I think we as a people are in love with movies.  We could escape the pressure of reality if only for two hours and dream about a better life.  

Germany's Economy: A brief summary

     Germany's economy has gone through a lot of changes in the past 60 years.  Today Germany's economy is fifth in the world and the largest in Europe.  Germany is a leading exporter in all types of goods such as "machinery, vehicles, chemicals, and household equipment and benefits from a highly skilled labor force." In 2012 the unemployment rate for Germany was 6.5%, with higher tax revenues and less spending Germany reached a budget surplus of 0.1% which is 39th in the world.  The country's budget is $1.511 trillion revenues and  $1.507 trillion in expenditures. 

    Germany has the sixth highest GDP (purchasing power parity) in the world at $3.123 trillion (2012 est.).  Germany's GDP per capita is twenty ninth in the world at $39,100 (2012 est.), 15.5% of the country is below the poverty line.  With a labor force of 44.01 million (2012 est.) most of the work force is in services at 73.8%, while industry have 24.6%, and agriculture was only 1.6%.  The country exports $1.492 trillion (2012 est.) within that is agriculture and industry.  Some of the most famous exports of Germany include "motor vehicles, machinery, chemicals, computer and electronic products, electrical equipment, pharmaceuticals, metals, transport equipment, foodstuffs, textiles, rubber and plastic products."  The euro was worth more than the US dollar at 0.78 (2012 est.) per US dollar.     

 

Nietzsche Quotes: Will to Power

My idea is that every specific body strives to become master over all space and to extend its force (--its will to power:) and to thrust back all that resists its extension. But it continually encounters similar efforts on the part of other bodies and ends by coming to an arrangement ("union") with those of them that are sufficiently related to it: thus they then conspire together for power. And the process goes on--

from The Will to Power, s.636, Walter Kaufmann transl. 

     Nietzsche talked about how victims when attacked they want to always fight back.  When they fight against their oppressors and win.  The victims hate their oppressors, but we don't blame them for their hatred.  Its when these victims can't win they think of other ways to bet their oppressors, one of the ways is to "team up" with other victims in order to bet the oppressors.  We see this happens today in the world when countries are being oppressed they seek help from other countries.  All of the countries involved ultimately want power.  In order to get the power the victims have to turn into the oppressors and the cycle continues.