seangabb
Published 31 Jan 2026This section introduces the Greek world and challenges common assumptions about Greek civilisation.
It examines who the Greeks were, where they came from, and how fragmented their political and cultural world was. It then explores the collapse of Bronze Age Greece around 1200 BC and the long Greek Dark Age that followed, during which writing disappeared, monumental architecture ceased, and long-distance trade declined.
When Greek civilisation recovered around 800 BC, it did not restore the Mycenaean world. Instead, it reinvented itself, drawing on epic poetry and myth rather than historical memory.
A central argument of this section is that the later Greeks knew less about their own early history than we do, and that Greek civilisation was rebuilt not on continuity, but on reinvention.
April 26, 2026
The Ancient Greeks: 01 – What Made Them Special? (a): Origins, Collapse, and Reinvention
April 25, 2026
Frank Furedi’s In Defence Of Populism
On his Substack, Frank Furedi explains why he wrote his new book In Defence Of Populism with especial reference to the recent Hungarian election results:
Photo from Roots & Wings with Frank Furedi
Have you noticed the flood of commentaries and articles appearing in the mainstream media dwelling on the topic of how to crush populism once and for all? The recent electoral defeat of Viktór Orbán’s Fidesz Party in Hungary has emboldened the European centrist technocratic elite to hope that this result spells the end of populist surge on both sides of the Atlantic.
The “is this the end of populism?” literature has been around for some time. To this day, mainstream commentators frequently express the hope that populism is a passing phenomenon. “Has Europe reached peak populism?”, asked a commentator in Politico in 2019, before expressing the hope that “the tide could be turning against the anti-establishment nationalist movements that have upended politics across the Continent, leaving the barbarians howling in frustration at the gates”.1 “We seem to have passed peak populism”, predicted Andrew Adonis, a leading British anti-Brexit voice.2
The outcome the Hungarian elections has led to an explosion of commentaries that are driven by the anti-populist dream of a world where populism is forced back into the margins of society. Polly Toynbee of The Guardian noted that “Viktor Orbán inspired rightwingers across the EU and in Britain. His defeat could represent a turning of the tide”.3
[…]
The main reason why I wrote In Defence of Populism is because it is necessary to counter the anti-populist hysteria about populism. Populism is surrounded by ceaseless hostility and mystification. Just about everything you are likely to read about populism in the specialist academic literature is motivated by their authors’ animosity and contempt towards their subject matter. Their sentiments are reproduced in an intensely polemical form by the mainstream media which habitually dismisses populists as far right and even fascists. According to the dominant media narrative, populists are racist xenophobes, homophobes and a variety of other phobes. At times the media hysteria regarding the so-called populist threat echoes the Red Scare of the 1920s and 1950s in the United States.
The populist voice has been systematically distorted by its opponents. I argue that this movement has been subjected to ideological warfare and recast through a teleology of evil. It is important to grasp the systematic attempt to demonise populism because, in the media and public life, a distorted and fundamentally flawed characterisation of populism prevails. What’s remarkable about this subject is that virtually everything that is communicated in the media and in the literature about populism is framed by individuals who are external to it. The definitions authored by these individuals communicate their bias and suspicion towards populism. Consequently, the way that populism is represented in public life is an invention of its opponents. Those who are ascribed the label populist do not get to decide who they are nor what populism means.
So although the populist movement is in the ascendancy, its actual definition is still unresolved and remains interpreted though the medium of a modern mythology. Almost everything you are likely to read about contemporary populism bears little relationship to the real impulses that drive this movement forward. In Defence of Populism offers an antidote to the confusions and distortions peddled by the anti-populist idealogues. I look forward to getting your feedback regarding what you think about the case for populism advanced in my book.
- Paul Taylor, “Has Europe reached peak populism?”, Politico, 5 September 2019 https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-reached-peak-populism-far-right-anti-european-government-election/
- Andrew Adonis, “We seem to have passed peak populism”, Prospect, 11 January 2023 https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/peak-populism-donald-trump-boris-johnson-jair-bolsonaro
- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/14/viktor-orban-europe-britain-hard-right-populism
Steyr M1912/16 Automatic “Repetierpistole“
Forgotten Weapons
Published 8 Dec 2025In the latter half of World War One the Austro-Hungarian military experimented with a number of select-fire pistol type weapons. One of these was the Steyr Repetierpistole M1912/16, an automatic adaptation of the regular M1912 pistol. It was given a 16-round fixed magazine (loaded via two 8-round stripper clips) and a selector switch. A total of 200 were produced, each supplied with a shoulder stock to help make the blistering 1200 rpm rate of fire somewhat usable. The design was not made from scratch, but rather adapted form the existing 1912 fire control system, which makes for a rather unorthodox system.
In addition to 200 of these pistols, the Austro-Hungarian military also acquired 50 twin-gun systems, which two of these pistols were attached to a frame with a single shoulder stock between them (no surviving examples of those are known today).
Frommer Pistolen-MG Model 1917 video:
• Frommer Pistolen-MG Model 1917: A Crazy Vi…Many thanks to the VHU — the Czech Military History Institute — for giving me access to these two fantastic prototypes to film for you. The Army Museum Žižkov is a part of the Institute, and they have a 3-story museum full of cool exhibits open to the public in Prague. If you have a chance to visit, it’s definitely worth the time! You can find all of their details (including their aviation and armor museums) here:
QotD: Goethe, the lost German master
This was the atmosphere in which I discovered Germany. It was a minor act of defiance to choose German instead of Latin for O-level, but with hindsight I was extremely fortunate to have the choice. There were two German teachers in my grammar school of just 600 pupils. Today, even the best state schools seldom offer the subject; not one of our four children has had the opportunity that I had to study German language and, especially, literature up to the high standard that was then expected at A-level.
Today, the texts are almost all recent and appear to be chosen partly with the film of the book in mind. In particular, Goethe has disappeared from the syllabus, presumably because the language is considered too archaic. Yet I recall the immense pleasure and satisfaction of mastering a Goethe play — Egmont. The story of the dashing Dutchman and his martial defiance of the sinister Duke of Alba, the courage of his beloved, Klärchen, who fantasises in song about how wonderful it would be to be a man and fight the Spaniards — “ein Glück sondergleichen ein Mannsbild zu sein“. Somehow I even obtained an LP of Beethoven’s incidental music for Egmont: seldom heard apart from the overture, but brilliantly evoking the grandeur of the drama.
Like Homer, Dante and Shakespeare, Goethe belongs not just to German literature, but to world literature, Weltliteratur — a term he coined. I am told that even in German Gymnasien, Goethe is little studied now. He is certainly a rare bird in English schools — or even universities. It is tragic that educated people, including students of literature, so seldom encounter the greatest of Germans even in translation. We might get on better with Germany if we did.
Daniel Johnson, “How I discovered Germany”, The Critic, 2020-08-02.
April 24, 2026
Britain’s Green Party … not your weird cousin’s old Green Party
The Green Party have been more of a punchline than a party for decades in British politics, but the Green Party of today shares only a name with its earlier incarnations (the old UK party is now split into three separate Green Parties for England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland). Now, it’s become a significant threat to the Labour Party thanks to its unlikely fusion of socialist and green policies with strong support from Britain’s growing Muslim community:
The Green Party is a growing force in British politics. In February, they gained the Parliamentary constituency of Gorton and Denton in a by-election — a supposedly “safe” seat for the Labour Party. Local elections in May see them set to make big gains — perhaps sweeping to power in several town halls in London, perhaps including Camden, where Sir Keir Starmer is one of the local MPs. Opinion polls often show them roughly level with Labour and the Conservatives.
This is quite a change from previous decades when they were indulged as eccentrics on the political fringe. The Green Party (or the Ecology Party, as it was earlier named) were the sandal-wearing, muesli-munching environmentalists who wanted to go back to nature. They opposed economic growth — but their supporters tended to be affluent enough that they could afford to do so. Its leader was the aristocrat Sir Jonathon Porritt.
They were the breed George Orwell was thinking of when he wrote: “One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England”.
Great fun. But there was a darker side to the quackery then and now. A totalitarian mentality which, as Orwell also vividly described, proves horrific when it prevails.
Increasingly, the Green Party has shifted its focus away from the environment. In the few towns and cities where it has gained power locally, such as in Bristol and Brighton, it has proved ineffective at practical work in this respect. Typical behaviour would be to pass a motion declaring a “climate emergency” but then perform lamentably when it comes to recycling or tree planting or any of the relevant matters they have the power to deal with.
There was always a distortion in its supposed concern for sustainability in that it was really an excuse to denounce capitalism. The Property and Environment Research Center, a US think tank which champions free-market environmentalism, has shown a more enlightened approach. Their work has included a comparison of privately-owned and state-owned forests. Another applies property rights to marine assets. But the role of property rights as a means of good stewardship of our planet is dismissed by the Green Party out of hand.
In any case, much of the campaigning by the Green Party now is on non-green issues. Its leadership talks a lot about foreign policy and a broader economic pitch focusing on class war rhetoric and an extreme programme of state control. Taxing the rich is always seen as the panacea, despite the reality that many entrepreneurs are already fleeing the United Kingdom due to its hostile fiscal environment.
Its Manifesto for the last election two years ago proposed a Wealth Tax, a pensions tax, and a big increase in Capital Gains Tax. A £90 billion carbon tax would have closed down much of British industry, which was probably the idea.
April 23, 2026
They put out propaganda because it works
I often find myself commenting on social media posts that the Canadian government’s direct subsidies to most of the mainstream media in Canada has created one of the most effective propaganda machines since 1930s Germany. “eLbOwS uP!” They keep doing it because it clearly is working fantastically well on a large enough share of Canadian voters that the polls (which may or may not be biased) keep touting that Dear Leader Carney and the Natural Governing Party are ever more popular. And most of the people consuming the propaganda message have their preferences re-inforced and the cycle starts again.
At Cracking Defence, Matthew Palmer discusses wartime propaganda during the 20th century, emphasizing that it’s the use to which it is put rather than the mechanism itself that has a moral value:
Propaganda is an absolute favourite subject of mine — probably not surprising considering that one of my roles in the military was psychological operations.1 Despite its very negative connotations thanks to the work of interwar writers like Frederick Ponsonby,2 propaganda really should be seen as a neutral term, perhaps best defined as “the deliberate attempt to persuade people to think and behave in a desired way”.3 Nor does it need to be state-driven; propaganda can come be generated from below as much as being driven top-down from the state or elites.
Some of the best propaganda comes out of wartime, and the First and Second World Wars were absolute goldmines. I also have a particular weakness for propaganda drawn up in early modernist and art deco styles, for which the first half of the 20th century was the high watermark. As such, here are a few of my all-time favourites for your delectation.4
Women of Britain Say — Go!
Women of Britain Say ‘Go!’
Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/14592A true classic that has reverbrated through the ages. Despite First World War propaganda having the reputation of being crudely jingoistic, much of it was in fact consciously aware of the pain and sacrifice being endured by the warring population, and did not try to hide it. This one acknowledges the sacrifice undertaken by the women and children left behind, while the background reminds the viewer of the green and pleasant land of ‘old England’ that they are fighting for.
[…]
Canadiens, Suivez l’Exemple de Dollard des Ormeaux
Canadiens, Suivez l’Exemple de Dollard des Ormeaux [Canadians, Follow the Example of Dollard des Ormeaux] a depiction of Adam Dollard resisting an attack by Iroquois tribesmen. Dollard’s dead comrades lie at his feet.
Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/31027I find this one intriguing, not because I think it is actually a brilliant poster but for what it tells you about historical context and how propaganda was often tailored explicitly for local sensibilities. While Canadian support for the Allies in the First World War was generally fierce, the major exception was Quebec, which saw relatively poor levels of recruitment for overseas service. As such, propaganda aimed at Quebecois often tapped deeply into local traditions, in this case the (extremely dodgy!) myth of Adam Dollard, venerated in the period as a Catholic martyr who died defending Quebec from native Iroquois.5
[…]
Together
Image courtesy of the IWM.
One can of course criticise the imperialism inherent in this poster, but I think it still works exceptionally well as a bold call for unity between the different nations of the British Empire. It shows how British propagandists took pains to highlight the Second World War as a global conflict against fascism.
- A job which, if I do say so myself, I was pretty bloody good at.
- Ponsonby wrote Falsehood in Wartime in which ironically he basically made up stories about British propagandists in a book supposedly about manufactured atrocity propaganda!
- Phillip Taylor, Munitions of the mind: A history of propaganda (Manchester University Press, 2013).
- I’m only going to present Allied propaganda. Because, frankly, fuck fascism.
- The story of Dollard is mostly myth, and he was more likely an idiot fur-trapper who got himself killed through stupidity.
Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar
Adrian Goldsworthy. Historian and Novelist
Published 1 Oct 2025The first of this year’s video’s in answer to viewers’ questions — today we think about and compare Alexander and Caesar. This is not new, for in the ancient world the pair were often connected, even though they lived centuries apart. Appian compared and contrasted them, Plutarch paired his biographies of them, while Suetonius and others told stories about Caesar’s admiration for the famous Macedonian.
QotD: The problems of a “no first use” nuclear weapons policy
For the United States during the Cold War, the problem with declaring a “no first use” policy was the worry that it would essentially serve as a “green light” for conventional Soviet military action in Europe. Recall, after all, that the Soviet military was stronger in conventional forces in Europe during the Cold War and that episodes like the Berlin Blockade (and resultant Berlin Airlift) seemed to confirm Soviet interest in expanding their control over central Europe. At the same time, the Soviet use of military force to crush the Hungarian Revolution (1956) and the Prague Spring (1968) continued to reaffirm that the USSR had no intention of letting Central or Eastern Europe choose their own fates – this was an empire that ruled by domination and intended to expand if it could.
The solution to blocking that expansion was NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Not because NATO collectively could defeat the USSR in a conventional war – the general assumption was that they probably couldn’t – but because NATO’s article 5 clause pledging mutual defense essentially meant that the nuclear powers of NATO (Britain, the United States, and France) pledged to defend the territory of all NATO members with nuclear weapons. But just like deterrence, mutual defense alliances are based on the perception that all members will defend each other. Declaring that the United States wouldn’t use nuclear weapons first would essentially be telling the Germans, “we’ll fight for you, but we won’t use our most powerful weapons for you” in the event of a conventional war; it would be creating a giant unacceptable asterisk next to that mutual defense clause.
So the United States had to be committed to at least the possibility that it would respond to a conventional military assault on West Germany with nuclear retaliation (often envisaged as a “tactical” use of nuclear weapons – that is, using smaller nuclear weapons against enemy military formations. That said, even in the 1950s, Bernard Brodie was already warning that restraining the escalation to general use of nuclear weapons once a tactical nuclear weapon was used would be practically impossible).
Bret Devereaux, “Collections: Nuclear Deterrence 101”, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, 2022-03-11.
April 22, 2026
“Finally authorities gave up and decided to let Timmy the Whaletard die in peace”
The German media has been breathlessly covering the story of a wandering whale who seems to delight in getting stranded on sandbanks along the northern coast of Germany in the Baltic Sea:
Timmy
Photo from eugyppius
Timmy is the name the German press have given to a confused humpback whale who got himself caught in a fishing net off the coast of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in early March.
Authorities cut Timmy free in the hopes that he would swim back to the Atlantic like a good whale, but instead he continued to poop around off the German Baltic coast where he does not belong, finally stranding himself on a sandbar near Niendorf like a complete fucking retard.1 An intensive rescue ensued – breathlessly livestreamed by the German press and regrettably also live-tweeted by myself. Ultimately the effort succeeded and Timmy swam free, only to strand himself again, and again, and again, and still again.
Finally authorities gave up and decided to let Timmy the Whaletard die in peace, but soon a whole raft of philanthropists and “whale whisperers” (this is literally what the press called one of them) descended on the problem and the drama of Timmy continues to this moment. The latest subplot unfolded yesterday, as our whale saviours prepared a complex scheme to lift Timmy via air cushions onto a tarp, tie him to pontoons and tug him around Denmark back into the North Atlantic. Alas, a rising tide loosened the hapless Timmy from his sandbar and he swam free, escaping this indignity at least and leaving all the whale-whispering shitheads with nothing to do but give more pointless media interviews. For two hours children across the Federal Republic jubilated as Timmy lurked aimlessly in shallow coastal waters, until of course he beached himself again, provoking a whole new narrative epicycle.
The case of Timmy the Retard Whale is oddly captivating. Most obviously it illustrates the naiveté and neotenous emotional incontinence of Germans today, many of whom have countered the pervasive secularisation of society with an exaggerated and childish faith in the overarching sacrality of the natural world and its creatures. The media have constructed a perverse Disney plot out of the endless ups and downs of Timmy’s plight: Now the whale is free! Now he is dying! Now he must be rescued! Now he is free again! Now he is stranded! Now there is hope! Now he is dying! Not only children but plenty of adults have lost themselves in this transparently repetitive drama. At one point a gaggle of dumb women even protested to demand that authorities do more to save our unsaveable humpback – who is of course merely one of perhaps 100,000 humpbacks across the world, the vast majority of whom will die in complete obscurity with nary a news article.
In my more delirious moments I wonder if Timmy is not also an omen from on high, a metaphor from the heavens to illustrate for us the ridiculous, circular farce that Germany has become.
- He was named Timmy for Timmendorfer Strand, where he beached himself for the first time. My efforts to christen him Horst have not caught on. I know the good Timmy is probably disoriented due to illness or injury and not actually retarded but this is how I have chosen to maintain emotional distance from the fate of this particular incorrigible mammal, who is beyond all human capacity to rescue but unfortunately not beyond all of my sympathies.
Walther’s Forgotten SMG: The MPK (and MPL)
Forgotten Weapons
Published 3 Dec 2025Walther began developing a modern stamped sheet metal SMG in the late 1950s, and it entered production in 1963. It was an open-bolt, simple blowback gun available in a short (MPK; 6.75″ barrel) and long (MPL; 10.25″ barrel) version. It was cheap and simple, but well thought out with a number of quite good features.
The standard design was just safe/full, but a semiautomatic selector position was available if desired by the client. An excellent safety sear prevented the bolt from bouncing open and firing, and the charging handle was both non-reciprocating and capable of also serving as a forward assist if needed. The sights were a bit too clever for Walther’s own good, with a 75m notch and a 150m aperture, both of which were not really great.
Faced with competition from contemporaries like the Uzi and MP5, the Walther never really became massively popular. It did get enough small and medium sized contracts (German police, South African police, Mexican Navy, Portuguese Navy, US Delta Force, etc) to remain in production until 1985 though. Overall a solid and reliable gun even if it failed to really stand out from the other options on the market.
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April 21, 2026
Hungary in the news
Theodore Dalrymple considers the recent change in government as Victor Orbán was replaced by Péter Magyar, who had been an Orbán supporter until the last few years:
Hungarian Prime Minister-elect Péter Magyar, on 15 March 2026 during a national day demonstration at Heroes’ Square in Budapest. Magyar is wearing a traditional bocskai jacket and a national cockade.
Photo by Norbert Banhalmi and released under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
It is perfectly normal and healthy that in an electoral democracy a government should be voted out of office after 16 years in power. One of the complaints often heard in such democracies is that “they are all the same”, they being members of the political class of whatever political party.
But there is benefit in a change of government personnel irrespective of all else, for those who remain too long in power come to think of that power as their right, and the citizenry as their servants rather than of themselves as servants of the citizenry.
The recent removal from power by election of Viktor Orbán in Hungary after so long as prime minister (and his full acceptance of the defeat, despite accusations that he was like an authoritarian dictator) was perfectly normal. He had been replaced by a man who is no fire-eating radical, Péter Magyar, a young man who was, until comparatively recently, a supporter of the leader he has replaced.
The electorate, according to polls, was concerned about the state of the economy and the level of corruption in the country. Governments that come into power promising to eradicate corruption often reveal themselves to be no different in this respect from the last: the fruits of corruption are distributed to different people, that is all.
The new prime minister differs greatly from the old in two attitudes: firstly, to the war in Ukraine and secondly to the European Union. Unlike Mr. Orbán, he is no friend of Vladimir Putin’s; and unlike Mr. Orbán, he is more likely to do the Union’s bidding in order to gain access to the latter’s funds. One important question is whether he will be forced to change Hungary’s attitude to mass immigration, opposition to which was a source not only of Mr. Orbán’s conflict with the Union, but of his long domestic popularity.
His policy was regarded as xenophobic, but this was an unjustified slur. Xenophobia is a hatred or fear of foreigners as such, ex officio, and on my visits to Hungary I found none of this. I met, for example, a Kurdish physiotherapist well integrated into Hungary, and a Moroccan academic likewise, who did not complain of personal antagonism to them. Other foreign residents whom I met did not complain of it either. A desire to protect a small country from the effects of mass immigration that have been seen in Sweden (a country of similar size of population), for example, is not xenophobia: it might on the contrary be regarded as both prudent and as a manifestation of love of one’s country. It is part of the malign legacy of Hitler and the Nazis that love of one’s country is now felt by many European intellectuals to be inherently vicious and aggressive. But love of one’s country is not the same as hatred of everyone else’s, though it is true that patriotism can sometimes degenerate into such hatred.
The European Union’s attitude to mass immigration is contradictory. It regards ethnic and cultural diversity as good in themselves, as if what existed before was lacking some important ingredient that such diversity will automatically bring.
Ivan the Terrible – Feeding the Evil Russian Tsar
Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 14 Oct 2025Soft buns filled with cabbage, onion and dill
City/Region: Russia
Time Period: 16th CenturyIn Russian, Ivan the Terrible is Ivan Grozny, and the translation of “terrible” was meant more in the way of “fearsome” or “formidable” rather than “cruel” or “awful”, though Ivan ended up being all of those. What started off as a good reign with military victories, building Saint Basil’s Cathedral, and restricting the boyars‘ (aristocracy) power over the people descended into a reign of terror with a secret police, the massacre of a city, and even killing his eldest son in a fit of rage.
While Ivan truly was terrible, these piroshki are not. They are absolutely delicious. The bread is soft, and the filling is savory and slightly sweet with the dill really coming through. These were made with all different kinds of fillings, so feel free to try out other ingredients, like meat, fish, fruit, or other vegetables, or put in a hard boiled egg for a modern touch.
Small pies filled with mushrooms, poppy seeds, kasha, turnips, cabbage, or whatever else God sends.
When the servants bake bread, order them to set some of the dough aside, to be stuffed for piroshki.— The Domostroi, 16th Century
April 20, 2026
QotD: The quality of evidence problem for historians
And yet, you can’t entirely discount them, either. Crecy (along with of course Agincourt) is supposed to be the triumph of the English longbow, and that’s the thing: We’ve reconstructed English longbows, and put them through all kinds of trials. The results, as I understand it — which, again, ain’t much — were highly variable. A very strong, well-fed, highly trained longbowman, firing an ideally constructed and maintained bow under optimal conditions, really can put X number of arrows up a flea’s ass at Y range in Z time.
Or they could miss the broad side of a barn at twenty feet, depending.
So: What was the weather like in Northern France on 26 August 1346? That’s not an idle question. Rather, it’s the central question. Assume perfect shooting conditions, and you’ve got a far, far different picture of the battle than if you assume poor ones. And if that seems to be giving too much credit to the weather, watch a few baseball games — you’ll quickly discover that quite often, the difference between a home run and a long out is just a few percentage points of relative humidity.
Ultimately it comes down to judgment. More importantly, it’s a judgment on how any particular event fits into the larger argument you’re trying to make. In a way, then, the details really don’t matter very much on their own — the mechanics of how the English won are almost irrelevant, except insofar as they feed into an analysis of why they won. Why did the French king attack uphill, in the mud? Was he stupid? Overconfident? Did he feel he had to, because of political problems inside his host? Did he have faulty information? Did he have accurate information, but just made a bad call?
That’s the art of History, and why, despite what the Peter Turchin (and Karl Marx) crowd keeps insisting, it will always be an art, not a science. We can have a high degree of confidence, most times, in what happened — there really was a battle at Crecy, and the English really did win it. It’s the why that is susceptible to radical reinterpretation.
Severian, “Friday Mailbag”, Founding Questions, 2022-06-17.
April 19, 2026
How to Tank the Economy for War – Death of Democracy 12 – Q4 1935
World War Two and Spartacus Olsson
Published 18 Apr 2026Nazi Germany in late 1935 was becoming more ruthless, more militarized, and more dangerous. In this episode, Spartacus Olsson reports from Berlin on the final months of 1935, when Hitler’s regime tightened its grip through food shortages, propaganda, rearmament, and the continued implementation of the Nuremberg Laws. As ordinary Germans faced rising prices, scarce meat and butter, and mounting pressure to sacrifice for the Reich, the Nazi state pushed its “guns before butter” economy even further. We examine the “fat gap”, Winter Relief, Eintopfsonntag, and the growing burden placed on German families while resources were diverted to war preparation.
At the same time, the First Supplementary Decree to the Reich Citizenship Law gave the regime a bureaucratic definition of who counted as a Jew, accelerating exclusion, dismissal, and persecution. Courts, police, and the Gestapo increasingly enforced the racist order, while Goebbels’ propaganda machine worked to normalize hardship, suppress criticism, and intensify antisemitism.
Against the backdrop of Mussolini’s invasion of Abyssinia and the paralysis of the League of Nations, Hitler found new room to maneuver internationally while consolidating dictatorship at home. This episode explores how the Third Reich turned scarcity into discipline, prejudice into law, and national pride into obedience — bringing Germany one step closer to catastrophe.
Never Forget.
QotD: The (only?) man who didn’t fear Margaret Thatcher
Thatcher reacted with cold fury, but Hoskyns was unabashed. Another story tells of his arriving for a meeting with the PM only to be intercepted by Ian Gow, her personal secretary. “Our girl is tired,” said Gow, trying to bar his path. “I’m tired too,” muttered Hoskyns. “It goes with the bloody job. I’m going in.”
Such irreverence to the “Great She-Elephant”, “She who must be obeyed”, “Attila the Hen” is rare enough, but this isn’t the main thing to remember Hoskyns for. Far more interesting – and relevant to now – is the work he did with fellow conservative Norman Strauss in the mid-1970s to diagnose the exact sources of Britain’s economic malaise, and come up with clear policies about how the country could haul itself out of it.
Robin Ashenden, “Thatcher’s ‘Wiring Diagram’ and why we need it once again”, The Critic, 2020-08-25.
