AP:
The Treaty of Versailles spelled out perpetual war...a ton of guilt was passed around, and a whole lot of crippling debt, and land taken or separated or occupied, think the Danzig Corridor and East Prussia, or the French 12-year occupation of the Rhineland.
A lot of compost was built up for a nasty guy with a Charlie Chaplin moustache, and no sense of humour, to plant seeds of far-right nationalism and harvest bitter and bloody crops otherwise known as the prophesied Second World War.
Then the same stupid set of rules to make Germany pay and pay and pay for WW II were set in stone, as if one country and one anal-fixated leader started the whole mess.
And now it's 'Tumbling living standards' ?
Germany's "...final installment of US$94 million was made on 3 October 2010, settling German loan debts in regard to reparations."
And that's not even getting into its war debt to Israel.
Which must seem ironic to the Germans, given that Israel has built walls around a stateless people, set up snipers to kill and maim protestors, and has even been accused of acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide before the ICJ.
"The organization that handles claims on behalf of Jews who suffered under the Nazis said Thursday that Germany agreed to pay approximately $1.2 billion (euros) to Holocaust survivors living around the world in 2023, bringing its total compensation to more than 80 billion euros."
That's a lot of money that could be spent on forestalling said tumbling living standards.
IOW, perpetual guilt and shame does not work.
Therefore, is it any wonder that fantasies for some mythological halcyon days create movements which should indeed scare the compost out of all of us?
Even worse?
Hollywood hasn't helped a bit because 'they' won't let the Germans ever forget about W.W. II...and I think the current generation or two are sick and tired of paying for it.