@Shamir – Maybe about Kashmir you are right. But definately not about the Uighurs. And actually it isn´t about the Uyghurs anymore either. It is about all Turkish minorities in Xinjiang. A very good Russian journalist that you personally know – Sania Burtin – has published a lenghty article about Xinjiang. You can find it on lesmedia. You know he is no hack. Please go and read it. What is happening in Xinjiang is truly terrible

Thanks and shame on me

Yeah. Kiev is really Russian, all Ukrainian nationalists are Nazis and Russians are the best and most moral people in the world. And of course as Ukrainian is sure as hell closer to Russian than to Polish it really has no claim to be an independent language. If I wouldn´t know Russia very well I´d be mightily disconcerted. But as it is I know that there are lot´s of people in Russia who are quite able to follow Matthew 7:3: Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

Sorry, but you are wrong. Germany did in fact allow Polish language education before the 1st WW. It was only after the 1st WW when Poland suppressed its German minority to the point that for instance a majority of Germans in Thorun (Thorn in German) were turned into a 10% minority that there arose this strong anti Polish animus. — Just as easily forgotten today is the fact that the Reich under Bismarck was majority Protestant and the biggest inner German conflict (Kulturkampf) was with the Catholic church. German Catholics and Polish Catholics found themselves on the same side.
Apart from that I am just sick of Russian attempts to simply ignore the fact that Ukraine does have an own language, culture and history. I am German and know Russian very well and Polish quite well. I have translated out of both of these languages into German and English.
What you, Anon2 are saying about Latin influence on Polish is definately true. The same can be said of Latin influence on German. Finally there is the non negligable influence of German on Polish. Take for instance the word musi (must-müssen). Russian though was directly influenced by Greek through Church Slavonic and later very strongly by Polish. The influence of Polish on Russian mainly went through Ukraine from the time of Алексей Михайлович.
Still as any translator knows the upshot of all this is that although Polish grammar is more complicated than Russian grammar it is much easier to translate from Polish into English or German than from Russian. The reason being that any formulation of abstract thought was in all three western languages directly translated from Latin (loan translation is the technical term) whereas Russian derived its abstract thinking from Greek through Church slavonic.

Maybe you should get your history right. It wasn´t until Catherine the Great and the fall of the Crimea Tartars that Russia actually besame neighbours with the Turks. And the endless Islamist Crusades? I suppose you are talking here about the Turks? I am not aware of Russia having played any role in any of the Turkish attempts to take Vienna. Maybe you are mixing up something. John Sobieski might sound Russian to you but he was a Polish king.

A usual tour de force by the Saker. But one can see things also very differently.
– Western Imperialism: the Holy Roman Empire never had any colonies. Nor did any of the Eastern European states. Nor did the Italians states save for the farcical attempts of Mussolini
– Whas the Turkish empire also due to the Frankish imperialistic popish impulse?
– What the Saker is talking about here are basically GB, France and Holland.
– What about the Russian Empire? What was it but a colonial enterprise? And will rump Russia endure? I have my doubts. Putin ended the Chechen war by giving Chechnya de facto if not de jure self governance. Right now things are okey dokey as Russia is bribing Kadyrov and Kadyrov and Putin having a special personal relationship. But what if circumstances change? Putin not being there any more and some new Russian government tries to enforce its writ in Chechnya? On top there is the birthrate in the Caucasus which is two times the Russian birthrate. Will all those different nationalities still feel bound to Russia in the future? And will Russians be willing to subsidise the Caucasus for ever?
– The “symbiosis” between Russia and China is laughable. As soon as the Anglo-Zionist empire really collapses the differences between Russia and China will come to the fore. To get China´s help after the Ukraine crisis Russia had to give China a free hand in Mongolia. Before Russia had always seen to it that Mongolia didn´t get to dependent on China. Half of the foreign exchange of Mongolia was earned by the Russian-Mongolian copper mine of Erdenet. Three years ago Russia sold its share in Erdenet. By now Erdenet has been pledged by Mongolias venal politicians as collateral for Chinese loans.
Also China has certainly never forgot that the Russian far East was part of the Qing empire until the 1850s.Tthis will be brought up again as soon as Russia is sufficiently weak.
Russia was forced into the alliance with China by the West. The only industrial sphere where Russia does indeed have world class expertise is in armaments. After Ukraine Russia was forced to share its technology with China. And China will definately put this new knowledge to good use and in the not so far future overtake Russia in this particular field of expertise. Then watch what will happen.
– China not interested in old fashioned imperial politics. That is laughable as well. China has a base in Ceylon now that they got as collateral for a loan that Ceylon couldn´t repay. China is laying claim to the whole South China sea and even parts of the 200 mile zones of countries like the Philipines, Indonesia and Vietnam. To back up these claims with military muscle they build navy bases all over the Spratley islands
– China is getting more and more carbon hydrates through pipelines from Central Asia. At the same time it is mass imprisoning its Turkic population (Uyghus, Kazakhs and Kirgiz). The way the Chinese treat those people is exactly racist in the way the Saker has described the European relationship to the rest of the world. If you are a businessman in any one of those countries you will not be allowed to interact with people of the same faith, culture and almost the same language who live just across the border in Xinjiang. The Chinese government has seen to the fact that any member of those minorities lives in mortal fear of any contact with foreigners. Any business must now be conducted only with ethnic Chinese. And as as a Kirghiz or Kazakh national you are not distuingishable from a Kirgiz or Kazakh from Xinjiang you will suffer the same indignities as them when you travel to Xinjiang.
As venal and corrupt as the elites of the “Stans” might be: even they perceive Chinese actions in neighbouring Xinjiang as so grossly offensive that they hardly hide their disdain anymore. In fact I talked to a journalist last week who was present at the latest SCO gathering in Bishkek. She was astonished at the level of Sinophobia she accountered.
So on the one hand China is in the process of acquiring more and more of the ressources of the Stans. But on the other hand it is worsening its relationship with the peoples of these countries.
The Stans are still ruled by the same Soviet nomenklatura. There has been no real change. The question is how stable this arrangement is. It definately fits the requirement of the Chinese but the longer this lasts the more the elites of the Stans are coming between China and their own population.
China is well aware of this. To protect its investment it might have to use force in the future. And that is what I expect to happen in case one of those pipelines is interrupted. Not so different from what the West is doing in the Middle East. All that talk of the Saker about “good” and “bad” civilisations and promised land once the Anglo-Zionist ascendancy is over is just that: empty words.
In reality Nitzsche is still right: States are the coldest of cold monsters.

I am in business in central asia. I won´t bother to refute the utter nonsense that you Andre are spouting. Just to anybody who might read these lines: believe me what is happening is worse than your worst dreams. It is something out of Orwells 1984 but enacted with modern technology. All governments in Central Asia are more or less dependent on China and are heavily being leaned upon to censor the news. Still things get out, relatives are being imprisoned (all muslim minorities are affecfted not only the Uighurs) and the few that make it out (dual nationality Kasakhs) have truly horrible stories to tell. What China is doing will have long term consequences and not even the most heavy handed censorship will prevent this having repercussions for the neighbouring governments of Kazakhstan, Kirgistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan who are doing nothing. Chinas belt and road will not survive this. You can´t racially profile, imprison and take the children away from such a large number of people who are basically the same as the people across the border and not get a visceral reaction.
Just imagine a Kazakh businessman travelling in Xinjiang and being harrassed all the time because of his looks and you know what he will think about China. Multiply that by a thousand and then you know how successful “belt and road” will be

Hi Linh
I have indeed read most of what you published on Unz. You are great writer with a unique perspective.
I am sorry, that these nitwits have managed to oust you from so many venues. But be assured you are more read and appreciated than 99% of your fellow US poets. In fact I find most “academic” poetry empty, self-obsessed and without any relevance whatsoever. I don´t know how representative the poetry in the New Yorker is, but most of it is pure drivel. Ever anxious to appease that or the other community and out to please an audience of well-off know nothing suburbanites this sort of poetry is so bad I only read it to understand the depth to which literature has fallen in the US.
So you are in an altogether different league and what does the oak care if a pig rubs its snoat on it. (German proverb)
As to black Americans you tell it like it is. Albeit though I might differ in ascribing the causes. Ever since I lived in the Eighties in the country of the penal laws Ireland where up to the 19.century Catholics i.e. Irish were not allowed to have a higher education nor advance in any other way except in the Church I believe that things like the penal laws and the more so slavery have a very long lasting effect. Basically men of the suppressed minotities give up on the pathes to glory and selfpropellment that are open in more egalitarian societies. Still they want to prove themselves. The only venues open are violence and the arts.
The English prejudice against the Irish — that they were more violent and unruly if not outright “dumb” had their base in reality. The Irish were indeed well known in the poorer sections of Glasgow and Liverpool for their propensity to violence and the inability to move beyond mere physical labour. But also the Irish have a much larger share in the Arts than their numbers would suggest. In fact I have since never been in a country where there was such a love for poetry, literature and music as in Ireland. Today the country is very different as the invisible shackles of the penal laws seem finally to have come off.
To my mind (one can argue about this of course) as a general rule African American literature is also much more interesting than the boring middle class contrived stuff that most of “white” Americans have produced.
Finally there can be no doubting the fact that the only original contribution of the US to world music is entirely due to AfricanAmerican genius.
Whatever – so many cheers for you from an avid reader.

The article is total and utter bullshit. The number of manuscripts extant depends on cultural continuity. There is obviously much less in the Greek East. Furthermore the number of manuscripts doesn´t day anything about their quality. Finally medieval Wester Europe´s intellectual production was largely due to the blooming of Islam civilisation. It is an indisputable fact that Christian Europe had only acknowledged certain writings by a few antique authors. The main one was Aristotle.
But from the 9th century the Arabs had started to collect and translate EVERYTHING that they could lay their hands on and founded huge libraries. They then took the antique wisdom and developed it further. In the natural sciences chemistry (itself an Arab word), mathematics (Algorithm is also an Arab word) and astronomy (practically all the lesser stars have Arab names like Betegeuze). In philisophy we have giants like Averroes without whom the greatest medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinus is unthinkable. Then there is Avicenna whose book of medicine translated as Liber Primus Naturalium was the preeminent handbook on medicine in Europe into the 18th century.
Therefore when one talks about the supposed advances of Western intellectual production one really talks about advances taken from the Arabs.

Hi Linh
Thanks again for your reply. I read an awful lot of your writings but evidently not all. I will read your recommendations with great pleasure.
Tom

Hi Linh
Thank you very much for your detailed reply. I have to admit I am German and have only lived in the States for any length of time in my youth. I went to Kindergarden and primary school in the Bay Area and my favourite kids to play with were black. The reason being that I came from a mining area in West Germany where fighting was the norm in the Sixties. Not anything really harmful just boys wrestling. I was used to that and frankly I liked it a lot. As I did when I grew older as well. Now in the bay area in the Kindergarden and primary the white kids didn´t do that. They were all very well behaved and I got into a lot of trouble. As did my brothers. (We were six kids and my Dad was a Mathematician who for a time worked in Berkeley and also the Lawrence Livermoore laboritories).
How happy were we for the black kids that were bussed in. They got into lot´s a trouble as well. But how much fun it was with them. They just liked the wrestling and fighting just as much as we did and didn´t get into lines. They also kept their fingers behind their arses during the morning singing of the anthem just like we did.
I have to say that ever since I have liked black people.
But I must also admit that my later stays in the US where all rather short. No more than a few weeks at a time doing research for books I was writing. Last time was in 2008 when I visited Amherst College, Washington DC and NYC. In Amherst College I witnessed the life of the upper class. Mind blowing tuition and real toxic PC. Even if I was paid a College prof salary I wouldn´t want to live there even one day. Basically you get lobotomized there. I talked to some poor people who worked around the College and they very well understood that not only were they poor but also lesser beings in the eyes of those rich kids there. To understand that you just listen to Hillary and her talk about the deplorables. These people who have all the privelegs really think they are morally superior.
I was then one week in NYC where I stayed in the apartment of a poor Russian immigrant who made do with an impossibly small pension. That is when I walked around Harlem and the South Bronx. I then kept thinking to myself: ok, those peoplee might be poor but at least they have some fun and talk to each other. I was called to come over by some big black ladies and old guys who then quizzed me on the world. I quizzed them back on life in Harlem. I found their sceptissm about the US refreshing.A very cynical take on politices and life. Alright, probably I wasn´t in the really bad areas.
Then I went on to Washington DC where I worked in the National Archives. I stayed with a friend who worked as a stubstitutes teacher and had really horrible stories to tell about public schools in DC.
What saved me and made me so happy was to meet a black young lady. She went to the cinema with me and then showed me around life music bars in black DC. But we were in the “better” parts of black DC. No slum and we weren´t afraid to walk at night. Fantastic music and great talks with her.

So really my limited experience in the US has strongly prejudiced me to have a good opinion of American blacks. On top there is my liking for black music and black writing and culture. Again I will be stoned on this blog but to my mind the only original (not an imitiation of European culture) contribution of American culture to the world is black. (Ok, there is Hank Williams and William Faulkner but one is from Appalachia and the other one from the South)
In fact in many ways I believe that black Americans (and Whites from the Appalachians for whom I also have a great liking but that is another story) are among the only “real” Americans. By “real” I mean people who have a visceral relationship with the land. People who are not “transplants”. Their scepticism and the fact that they don´t buy the American dream reminds me of working class people in Europe. The average whites buy (or did buy) the American dream. This dream basically means that your place in society only depends on your own efforts. Maybe it was true in the past but it is definately not true today. In Germany your chances to “make it” are much better for a person from a poor background. If only because college is free.
But the propagation of the “American dream” is the best way to destroy any solidarity or community. The best way to rule.
You write in your last article that you send that nobody is hurt more by immigration than Blacks.
And I believe it immediately. Same in Germany. It is the working poor who are suffering and being destroyed by immigration. I also think that black society was (ironically) destroyed by the cicil rights movement. The lesser part of blacks gave up their culture and language and were rewarded.
The rest sank into bottomless dispair.
But as I said: American culture is toxic. It is great for immigrants but terrible for people who have been there longer as it makes you dumb. The immigrants are like wolves who come among lambs. But by the third generation they are dumbed down by US culture and have become lambs themselves.
Trum is a sign of great convulsions to come as the American dream is ending.If there is a basis from which to rebuild US society after the end of the American dream it is to be found in certain rural white areas and among black Americans. Maybe that is complete hogwash and I don´t know enough. But that is my reading of American culture.

I am like always much thrilled by your writing. You express exactly what I am thinking about man and community and the toxic ways of the American way of life. At least the American way of life as it is now. When I last came to the US I couldn´t help but notice that the places where I found the sort of community you are writing about in Vietnam were to be found in black places. I walked a lot in NYC and the only area where people were having that kind of life was in Harlem and the South Bronx.
I wonder whether it is not an instintive reaction of black people in the US to reject all the madness of modern American life. That in reality they are the sane ones and the denizens of plastic suburbia the mad ones. I am by the way of the unpopular opinion that the best American writing is disproportionally black. Give me James Baldwin, Richard Wright and Chester Himes any time over the likes of Saul Bellow and Updike. The only exception would be Faulkner.
I have also talked on the street a lot with black people and they might be uneducated but they certainly don´t swallow the bullshit of the man like their white countrymen do. But that seems to change…
Anyhow dear Mr, Linh: have thoughts like these never occured to you? I am really curious and would be very happy if you could just honor me with a short reply

Very sad as well about Linh. About soccer: remember how Greece won the European chaimpionship? They because they had the best trainer in the world who made them believe in themselves. His name is Otto Rehagel. He never trained the really great clubs except one year Munich where he was kicked out because he didn´t want to talk bullshit as the sponsors demanded. That is why I love soccer and always will.

Love you but about soccer you´re wrong. I am a German and a long time soccer fan. Problem with your argument is that soccer is only marginally about physical prowess. One of the greatest player of all times was a guy called Diego Maradona aka “the hand of god”. Look him up! He was short, pudgy and not very fast. He was though a genius dribbler and somehow the one each and every one of his teams liked to give the ball to. Talk about social intelligence!
Maybe the greatest player today is Lional Messi from Argentina. No great athlete, not the fastest but again a genius at the ball. He also has some hard to pin charisma. My boy who is ten loves him. He cried terribly when Argentina lost in the last world cup.
Some riddle: during the cold war European teams from the East never amounted to much. You would have thought that in a team sport they would be top. But it was the indivualist West that always had the best teams. On the other hand in non-team sports the East mostly came ahead. It is true of East- and West Germany as well. How come?
Regarding Vietnam and her winning in soccer my theory would be that Vietnam is not half as bad a a dictatorship as she is made out to be because soccer thrives in freedom. Best example are the Chinese. Probably no nation has poured more money into the national team like China. With the most dismal results! They are regularly beaten by everybody else.
Another example is Iran. Contrary to what our mendacious press claims Iran is actually the freest country in the middle East. And they regularly kick everybody else´s ass in Asia.
Soccer is the one sport where there are too many variables to be able to program any outcome. To be successful you need to have the right mix of team spirit, talented individuals, athleticism and a charismatic trainer. But to achieve this mix is hellishly difficult.
Anyhow as a soccer fan who has made some pretty good calls betting on outcomes let me tell you this: from what I read in your dispatches Vietnam sounds a lot like Italy. People sitting around in the open and sharing everything they have. There doesn´t seem to be to much control and a soccer team can just be a soccer team and isn´t being dictated to by some powerful nitwit. I gather that solely from your dispatches. So if I read you right I believe that Vietnam will go a long way!
Look up which countries were successful in soccer! Then forget all about this athletic bullshit. Soccer is precisely the most popular game in the world because everybody can excel. Hell, South Korea beat Germany in the last world cup.

Dear Mr Chisala
Thanks for this interesting article. I am not surprised at all. As a matter of fact I had the pleasure of travelling with Nigerian criminals many years ago. They were trying to cross the Belorussian-Polish and had made the mistake of mentioning that they had 10s of thousands of Dollars. Albeit in commercial paper but their Russian was so poor that everybody thought they indeed had cash. Back in the Nineties a sure way to an early death. So I warned them and helped them find another border crossing. Indeed I had troubles crossing this very border as well so we travelled together. Evidently they had quite a good education and they were successful white collar criminals. Their tricks were quite simple but effective. In fact they told me there are schools in Lagos were they teach you the psychology of tricking whites. And it is oh so easy they told me. They all think we are stupid and we do nothing to disabuse them of this opinion. In fact counting on the superior complex of whites is a very easy way to make a living. Well, I couldn´t take Mr. Murray serious when his book the “Bell Curve” came out and I am happy to see that you found such incontrovertible data.
I am German – Russian by the way and 55 and if intelligence as measured by the IQ test was really mostly determined by genes then it is inexplicable how my generation should be much more intelligent than the generation of our grandfathers. (The Flynn effect). For genes don´t change in two generation. So there must be other explanations. In the case of your African achievers in Great Britain I surmise that
1. their mothers still cook regular food and not TV dinners,
2. that they talk to each other and not watch TV all the time or are glued to their smart phones
3. that they know that education is the only way forward
4. are not (yet) influenced by the crap that passes for culture in the West
5. still have roots in the ancient wisdom of their homeland while we are busily throwing ours away here.
Whatever: keep up the good work.

Hi Mr Unz
You might be interested in an article by German journalist Gaby Weber. It is about Adolf Eichmann and the fact that the official story doesn´t tally whatsoever. Before you read it please keep in mind that Gaby Weber is high regarded in Germany. She is one of our few honest journalists. Yes, indeed it is more than strange that Eichmann had been on the loose for so long. Everybody knew where he was and he even had contact with Jews in Argentina who knew who he was. It is also true that Eichmann knew Hebrew and had had contacts with high ranking zionists. There is a transcript of a long, long interview with former SS man (and sought after war criminal) Willem Sassen where he admitted all of that. In fact Eichmann had been representative of Standard Oil in the middle East until 1933. The interview with Sassen is indeed be very interesting. But, but, but although Gaby Weber won a court case in Germany which resulted in her receiving a transcript not everything was transferred. And parts of that which has been transferred are not legible. Gaby Weber posits that Eichmann was delivered to Israel (not by the Mossad) to blackmail the German government. But why not also to keep him from blackmailing the Israeli government? Please by all means read it. From my knowledge of post war German history the link she makes between Globke, the Israeli nuclear program and the trial of Eichmann seems solid.
And by the way: why not contact Gaby Weber and ask her to send you the originals of the Sassen interview? Some of it was not legible but I think with enough computer power and the right software plus scanners you might be able to get everything.
She has her own website at: gabyweber.com. From her website the English version of one of her numerous articles on Eichmann: http://www.gabyweber.com/dwnld/artikel/EICHMANN%20DLF%20ENGL.pdf

Mr. Unz
Thanks a lot for your interesting article. I very much welcome your endeavour to highlight things that have gone down the memory hole. Regarding Jews and their role in the history of the 20th century I myself once stumbled on such a memory hole myself. (I am a German writer fluent in Russian and English who has published several books) You find a former comment of mine regarding your article about post war Germany and France.
So here it is: about ten years ago I was researching a man called Louis Horch in the National Archives in Washington. Louis Horch was a Jew of German extraction who was a mid level player on Wall Street before, during and after the first world war. His speciality was currency trading which back then meant also trading in Gold and Silver. My interest in him was caused by the fact that he was financing a Russian artist about whom I was writing a biography.
Not expecting much I found a whole file on him. This file was by investigators of the State Department who drew on a whole lot of other agencies. The gist of the matter was that he had been closely monitored during the recent war for SUPPORTING GERMANY. That might not have been that surprising by itself but in the file there were very clear signals that they had not only monitored him but all German Jewish bankers. And in fact had imprisoned several from 1917 and had also put Louis Horch under immense pressure. Some of the most prominent names came up: Kuhn&Loeb and Otto Kahn. (Kuhn&Loeb being the most important German Jewish bank and Otto Kahn the most important banker)
I had never heard of this and found no literature on German Jewish bankers on Wall Street using their influence to lobby for Germany and keep the US out of the war. (Not to speak of financing German imports during the war a.s.o) Neither had I ever heard of immense pressure on firms like Kuhn&Loeb which were then second only to the house of Morgan.
I didn´t find any literature on it. Nothing. Only several passages that hinted at “false” accusations that Otto Kahn had tried to prevent the US entering the first world war. To counter these “slanders” they cited his autobiography (written much later) and comments he had supposedly made during the war.
But there were the files which I had seen with my own lying eyes! Thinking that something as important as that (the German-Jewish banking community was right behind the WASP bankers
– Morgan – in importance) I thought that one must find traces of it in a general history. As luck would have it I found it in a book called the “the house of Morgan” by Ron Chernow.
To sum it: there was intense competition between WASP bankers and German Jewish bankers on Wall Street. (Among them the Schiff dynasty which you mention in your article). The WASP bankers generally had the upper hand but the German-Jewish bankers (who consisted of several families from Southwest Germany who constantly intermarried) were coming up. In the First world war they indeed lobbied against US participation in the war. In 1917 they were swept up in the furor against anything German and lost most of their influence.
Their pro German stance had been very, very bad for business and after the war they understandably did everything to sweep their previous stance under the carpet. Goldhagen and his ilk then did the rest after the second world war.
So what to make of this surprising fact?
First you must understand that the position of German Jews was in some ways unique in Europe. There weren´t many – about half a million – and their position in society was quite different. At least compared to East European Jews who numbered at least ten times more and who were the bulk of Europe´s Jewish population. First of all the vast majority identified themselves foremost as Germans. Albeit of Jewish extraction. Rather like Jews in the US today. Their mother tongue was German and only a minority had typically Jewish names. There was none of the jewish mysticism which you would find in the East.If they were religious at all they adhered to a “reformed” Judaism which – in its bareness and rationality – resembled main stream Protestantism. They intermarried to a degree that is completely incomprehensible if you believe todays historiography about the supposed “eternal” antisemitism of Germany. There is a very interesting book by a Texan historian
about mixed race soldiers in the Wehrmacht “Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers
The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military
Bryan Mark Rigg” According to this very well researched book there must have been more than a hundred thousand men of partial Jewish heritage in the Wehrmacht. Which shows the immense amount of intermarriage.
Jews had indeed a huge head start on the rest of the German population during the industrial revolution. They already lived in cities and knew city ways when it all started and they all were literate. So they very quickly rose in all spheres which were not reserved for the aristocracy. That is industry, banking, science, law and the arts. Maybe cronyism played a part. But certainly not as big a one as has been later claimed by the Nazis.
Jews played a huge and leading part in the German war effort. Walter Rathenau (head of the German war economy) comes to mind or Fritz Haber who was instrumental in the German use of poison gas. Finally it is very doubtful that Jews were under represented in front troups. There is the famous “Judenzählung” (counting of Jews among front line troups) in 1916. The results were only published after the war and did indeed point to an under representation. But there is ample reason to doubt the soundness of these findings.
First of all because Jews were classified according to religion, then because the baseline was to high (number of assumed Jews vs. real number of Jews in Germany) and then also because Jews were overrepresented in areas that were excempted from the draft like Doctors.
There´s lot´s of evidence that German Jews deeply identified with Germany. It is certainly a fact that they were for the most part rather conservative. You might counter that with some prominent Socialists like Rosa Luxemburg. But take a closer look and you find that she and most of the others were actually Jews from the East.
John Spallek the greatest expert on the German Jewish emigration during the Third Reich – who was tasked by Helmut Kohl to repatriate the literary estates of Germans (mostly Jews) – told me that most of Jewish exiles were German patriots who would have gladly worked under Hitler.

Sorry, that was a very long diversion. But I think one needs to keep the above facts in mind if one wants to understand why the German-Jewish elite supported Germany in the first world war. THEY IDENTIFIED AS GERMANS. It is a fact that they tried to make forget after the war. Actually just like non Jewish German-Americans

A second consideration was the fact that they hated Russia. One shouldn´t belittle the progroms in Russia. Compared to what was to follow it was absolutely nothing. But it was bad enough and the discrimination of Yiddish speaking Jews in Czarist Russia was a sorry fact. (There was actually a second minority speaking a Germanic tongue that was conversely favoured by the authorities: ethnic German colonists and Baltic barons. After the revolution Germans were therefore overrepresented in the ranks of the White Army whereas Jews were over represented in the red Army.)

It is a further fact that educated Eastern European Jews turned towards German culture. They learned German, spoke German at home and send their kids to German schools and universities.

After the Russian revolution of 1917 there was a break down of public order and one quickly loses count when one tries to sum up incidents of antisemitic violence. Not surprisingly Jews all over Western Russia were very happy to see German troups restoring public order. In the second world war the positive image of Germany was one reason why Jews staid put when the Wehrmacht came.

This was a very long post. Mr. Unz, one of my books is two thirds translated into English. I dare say you will find it interesting. It is the story of a man between Gestapo and GPU, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia and the US. I consulted files in Moscow (archive of the Comintern), Berlin (Gestapo) and Washington (CIC, FBI a.s.o) to write it. The translation was done about 15 years ago but I never got around to finish it. If you promise not to show it to anybody else (the copyright of the translation is with the person who paid for it – not me) I will send it to you. Please see my Email adress above.

Hi Eugenegurr. I don´t know whether you are familiar with Gulag literature. Meaning Rasgon, Solshenizyn and Shalamow. Most German POW worked under just such circumstances and I don´t think one can call them anything but truly terrible. But I have found remarkably little bitterness among former POW´s. The Russian people as such get high praise and of course the prisoners themselves were aware that Russian civilians weren´t much better off..

There are also dark spots that you better not mention in Russia today. I know a young historian in Ulan Ude who researches the Russian minority in Mongolia. He told me that he found out what had happened to some of the Kosaks who had fought on the German side. They had all dispappeared. But were to?
They were in Mongolia mining Uranium. They all had early and horrible deaths from cancer.
When I asked him why he didn´t publsih something about it he told me that he thought it wouldn´t be good for the Russian state. Apart from that he is a young man with two kids and is no tenured professor.
Finally let me state that I do like Russia very much and speak the language. I have been there more times than I can count and worked in various archives. I have always felt that Russia gets a bad deal from Western historians. So please don´t read into my stating of facts some general condemnation of Russian people. It was a horrible time and I am glad I was not alive then. No matter whether German or Russian.

You go overboard here. I am German and I can tell you 100% that the memories of German civilians regarding American black soldiers is nothing but good. They were by far the most popular of the occupation troops. Not for them the treatment of Germans as a lower form of life. They shared their food, gave candies to the kids and completely disregarded non-fraternisation.
In fact black American soldiers were famously fond of Germany as they never met with the kind of racism that they were accustomed to from home. I remember distinctly hearing that time and again from black Americans when I grew up in Heidelberg where there were about 30 000 American troops.
So please correct this. You are really doing a disservice to the good memory that black American soldiers have left in Germany