Germany Cannot Escape Its History: Why You Need a Plan B Now

There is a dangerous illusion in today’s Germany. Walk through the quiet, well-ordered streets of Freiburg or Hamburg, and you will hear people say, almost casually, “We live in the longest period of peace our country has ever known.” And it’s true. For eighty years now, Germany has been spared the burning of villages, the howling of artillery, the slow starvation of its people. But illusions are dangerous precisely because they lull us into believing that history has stopped. It hasn’t. In no other Western country has the earth drunk so much blood as in Germany. And that fact is not an accident of the past—it is the geography of the present.

Look east. A Russian drone has already crossed into Poland, a NATO country, in 2025. How many more warnings do you need? How long will you wait before you realize that history, the kind written in fire and steel, is never as far away as you think?

Five Hundred Years of Fire

Let us count the dead. Not as a morbid exercise, but as the only way to tear down the illusion that “this time it will be different.”

• 1524–1525: The German Peasants’ War.
  A hundred thousand peasants slaughtered, their bodies left in ditches and fields. Entire villages burned for daring to demand freedom and bread.

• 1618–1648: The Thirty Years’ War.
  The black hole of German history. Between four and eight million Germans dead—20 to 40 percent of the entire population. Towns wiped out. Cannibalism in the countryside. Entire regions depopulated. No other Western European country ever saw such devastation in the modern era.

• 1756–1763: The Seven Years’ War.
  The first “world war,” but the killing fields were in Saxony, Brandenburg, Silesia. Half a million deaths in German lands. Prussia survived, barely.

• 1803–1815: The Napoleonic Wars.
  Jena, Auerstedt, Leipzig—the “Battle of Nations” where 600,000 men clashed, leaving 90,000 dead in four days. In total, 200,000–300,000 Germans lost their lives.

• 1848–1849: The Revolutions.
  Less remembered, but 10,000 dead in the streets of Berlin, Vienna, Baden. Germans killed for demanding freedom and democracy.

• 1866: Austro-Prussian War.
  Forty-five thousand casualties, 20,000 dead, in just seven weeks.

• 1870–1871: The Franco-Prussian War.
  Forty-four thousand Germans dead. Bismarck created the Empire in Versailles, baptized in blood.

• 1914–1918: The First World War.
  Two million German soldiers dead. 426,000 civilians starved during the blockade. A whole generation shattered in Flanders, Verdun, the Somme.

• 1918–1919: The Revolution.
  Workers’ and soldiers’ councils, Spartacists, Freikorps. Another 5,000–10,000 dead in civil fighting.

• 1939–1945: The Second World War.
  The ultimate catastrophe: 5.3 million German soldiers killed, 2 million civilians dead, entire cities—Hamburg, Dresden, Berlin—turned to ashes. Total German dead: 7–8 million.

Add it all up: in 500 years, tens of millions of Germans have died violently, often on their own soil.

The English Exception

Now compare this with England. The English Civil War (1642–1651) was their great bloodletting: 200,000 dead, 4% of the population. Horrific, yes—but nothing compared to Germany’s 30 Years’ War. After that, England’s battles were fought overseas. In the Seven Years’ War, in the Napoleonic Wars, in the World Wars, the English buried their dead—but their homeland remained largely untouched.

The numbers tell the story:

• WWI: 1 million British dead.

• WWII: 450,000.
  Both catastrophic, but never the wholesale annihilation that Germany endured. England’s wars were global, Germany’s wars were local, and that makes all the difference.

The American Story

Or look across the Atlantic. The U.S. has buried many of its sons, but most fell far from home. The Civil War (1861–1865) was the bloodbath: 620,000–750,000 Americans dead, 2% of the population. But since then?

• WWI: 116,000 dead.

• WWII: 405,000 dead.

• Korea and Vietnam: 94,000 dead combined.

• Iraq and Afghanistan: ~7,000.

Tragic, yes—but the U.S. homeland has been safe. No thirty-year war burned through Kansas. No bombers turned Dallas into rubble. America has never lost 40% of its people in a single war.

Germany’s Geography is Destiny

Why this difference? Geography. England is an island. The U.S. is a continent, shielded by oceans. Germany lies in the middle of Europe, open to invasion from east and west, north and south. The Rhine, the Elbe, the Oder—these are highways for armies. Ask yourself: why was the Thirty Years’ War fought here? Why did Napoleon march here? Why did the Red Army stop in Berlin? Because Germany is the chessboard of Europe. Always has been, always will be.

The Illusion of Peace

Eighty years without war has made us forget this. My generation grew up in a Germany where the worst danger was the RAF terrorists or a NATO exercise gone wrong. We believed that history had ended, that peace was permanent, that prosperity was eternal. But history laughs at such illusions.

Russia has already attacked Ukraine. Drones have already struck Poland. One miscalculation, one “accidental” missile, one border skirmish—and NATO is at war. Do you think Germany will be spared? Do you think Berlin will not once again be a target? The idea that the peace of the last 80 years will continue forever is not just naïve—it is suicidal.

Numbers Don’t Lie

Let’s put it bluntly:

• Germany in WWII: 7–8 million dead (~10% of population).

• Germany in the Thirty Years’ War: up to 40% of population dead.

• U.S. in its deadliest war (the Civil War): 2% of population dead.

• England in its deadliest war (WWI): ~2% of population dead.

No other Western country has endured repeated, catastrophic bloodletting like Germany. Not even close.

The Lesson

The lesson is simple: Germans cannot escape their history. It is written in blood, in geography, in the bones of the soil itself. Every field from Bavaria to Brandenburg holds the memory of slaughter. To believe that this time it will be different is arrogance. To live as though nothing will ever happen again is madness.

What Are You Waiting For?

So I ask: How long do you want to wait? Do you want to wait until the first Russian drone falls on Frankfurt? Until NATO tanks roll across Saxony again? Until the next blockade starves your children?

History tells us this: peace in Germany is the exception, not the rule. Eighty years is a blink of an eye. And the blink is closing.

Get a Plan B

You don’t need to believe me. Just look at the numbers. Look at the bodies piled up in every century. Look east, at the war in Ukraine. Look at Poland, hit by drones in 2025. Do you think the fire won’t cross the border?

Every German needs a Plan B.

• A second residency.

• Assets abroad.

• A way out.

Or better yet: get out now. Don’t wait for the illusion of peace to shatter. Because when it does, it will be too late.

Conclusion: Geography Does Not Forgive

Germany’s tragedy is not Hitler. It is not even Bismarck. Germany’s tragedy is its geography. The open plain, the crossroads of Europe, the killing ground of empires. You cannot escape it by hoping, by voting, by pretending. You can only escape it by acting.

For five hundred years, Germans have died in numbers that dwarf those of England and America. This is not pessimism—it is fact. The blood of your ancestors cries from the ground. Listen to it.

History is coming again. How long will you wait?