Speaker 1: Hmm. Welcome back to the horse Shittingest Podcast and all
Speaker 1: the Land behind the Bastards. This is part two of
Speaker 1: our episode on Alfred Prupp, Faimed Arms, Maven and horse
Speaker 1: poop Lover. Uh. My guests as in part one is
Speaker 1: Alison Stevenson, writer and comedian Alison How are you doing today? Uh?
Speaker 1: You know, excited to hear more about horseshit. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: definitely more horse ship in this. Also, a lot of
Speaker 1: people get killed. Um and uh spoiler, we get a Germany. Okay,
Speaker 1: ready to learn how Germany came about? Yeah, man, let's
Speaker 1: do it. Yeah. It's one of those things that has
Speaker 1: nothing but positive consequences. Thank god. Can you imagine life
Speaker 1: without Germany? How different history would have been. That's facts,
Speaker 1: that's bad. I'd have more relatives, problems, you would. You
Speaker 1: would definitely have more a lot of a staggering amount
Speaker 1: of people. A lot of Germans would have more relatives
Speaker 1: if there had never been a Germany. Actually I will
Speaker 1: say there would be too many English people. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: don't want that. So all the historic events we've discussed
Speaker 1: so far, we're happening during a mostly forgotten by modern standards,
Speaker 1: but very violent period called the Wars of German Unification.
Speaker 1: So for most of the last few centuries, Germany hadn't
Speaker 1: been a thing. It had been a patchwork of often
Speaker 1: warring and always quarreling kingdoms, and the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that became Germany started to gradually coalesce, together with the
Speaker 1: birth of the German Common Market, which we talked about
Speaker 1: last episode in the German Confederation. But Germans being Germans,
Speaker 1: it was going to take a series of wars to
Speaker 1: actually seal the deal. One of those wars, in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty four involved Prussia and Austria allying to fight Denmark,
Speaker 1: which at the time controlled a chunk of land and
Speaker 1: what we now would consider northern Germany. Um, Denmark used
Speaker 1: to have possessions outside that weird little fucking is the
Speaker 1: most or whatever the fun you want to call it,
Speaker 1: sticking out of the top of Europe. They owned a
Speaker 1: bunch of the continent, and the Germans were like, but
Speaker 1: that should be ours, and so they had they had
Speaker 1: a war. Now, when this war kicked off in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty four, the Danish army was small but extremely experienced.
Speaker 1: It included one of the highest proportions of combat veterans
Speaker 1: and continental Europe, and in the past that had made
Speaker 1: all of the difference in European wars, you know, more
Speaker 1: than minor difference differences in musketry or cannon was whether
Speaker 1: or not your your troops were veteran, because like guns sucked,
Speaker 1: and cannons also kind of sucked. Um, So what really
Speaker 1: mattered was if you had a bunch of guys who
Speaker 1: were able to like stand together when they got shot
Speaker 1: at and then charged the other guys with sharpened sticks
Speaker 1: like that was kind of what determined battles. Um. And
Speaker 1: the Danes had that, and the German army was like
Speaker 1: completely inexperienced. Um, they were well drilled in everything, but
Speaker 1: they had never actually been in battle, and so everyone
Speaker 1: kind of when this started assumed that the Danish army
Speaker 1: was going to win. But for this war, the Danes
Speaker 1: were armed with brass cannons and muzzle loading muskets, while
Speaker 1: the Prussians and the Austrians had been armed by Kroop
Speaker 1: with breach steel cannons. They also had drice needle guns,
Speaker 1: which were essentially the first bolt bolt action rifles. So
Speaker 1: both the Prussian and Austrian armies were again made up
Speaker 1: of guys who had never fought before. But that didn't
Speaker 1: wind up mattering, because with their advanced cannons and rifles,
Speaker 1: they cut the Danish army to pieces without breaking a
Speaker 1: sweat thanks to their advanced firepower. This was the first
Speaker 1: time that a European war had been decided purely by
Speaker 1: arms technology, and it would not be the last. So obviously,
Speaker 1: like you look at European conquest of of you know,
Speaker 1: North America, South America, Africa which is kind of starting
Speaker 1: in this period, Southeast Asia, they always have a technological
Speaker 1: advantage on their opponents, but in European wars, they'd all
Speaker 1: been equal enough that what had mattered was like quality
Speaker 1: of generals and like how good your troops were. This
Speaker 1: is the first time that one European army goes up
Speaker 1: against another with such an advantage in technology that nothing
Speaker 1: else matters. Um. Yeah, and it kind of freaks people
Speaker 1: out because they'd always assumed that, like, well, we're all equal, right,
Speaker 1: Like when we fight these other people who aren't white,
Speaker 1: we always have an edge, but when we fight each other,
Speaker 1: we're all on the same And now, yeah, suddenly that
Speaker 1: isn't true anymore. And yeah, so for the first time,
Speaker 1: you know, people start flipping out about this. Both Austria
Speaker 1: and Prussia start putting in orders for more guns, and
Speaker 1: of course Alfred was happy to sell to them both.
Speaker 1: And this actually kind of piste off the King of Prussia,
Speaker 1: who was presently in the process of getting into a
Speaker 1: war with his former ally Austria. So Austria and Prussia
Speaker 1: fight den Or fight the Danes and win and take
Speaker 1: a big chunk of Germany. Um. And then they go
Speaker 1: to war with each other. In By eighteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: both nations were mobilizing to fight, and Krupp had penning
Speaker 1: orders from both sides. And since Essen was in Prussia,
Speaker 1: like he's under the King of Prussia, who's not happy
Speaker 1: about the fact that he's arming the guys, they're about
Speaker 1: to go fight. So the Kings is this kind of
Speaker 1: the first time that this sort of thing is happens, Yes,
Speaker 1: this is the first time that this is happening. Um,
Speaker 1: which is again yet another like uh thing that we
Speaker 1: can thank al Ford Krupp for. Yeah, thank you, Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks buddy. So the King's war minister sends Alfred a
Speaker 1: letter I venture to ask you whether you are willing
Speaker 1: out of patriotic regard to present political conditions to undertake
Speaker 1: not to supply any guns to Austria without the consent
Speaker 1: of the King's government. Now, at this point, Alfred Krupp
Speaker 1: had put a lot of stock into being a patriotic gunmaker,
Speaker 1: and this was a pretty hobbiest conflict of interest between
Speaker 1: his nation and his business. Alfred did the right thing, though,
Speaker 1: and avoided responding for nearly a week. When he finally
Speaker 1: did reply, he wrote that he knew very little about
Speaker 1: the political conditions and planned to go on working quietly.
Speaker 1: He pointed out that Vienna wouldn't get their new cannons
Speaker 1: until June, and that the King could impound krup shipments
Speaker 1: if he wished, so, like, what was the big deal? Like?
Speaker 1: It probably won't get there in time to kill your soldiers?
Speaker 1: Why are you complaining? This? Piste off the King of Prussia,
Speaker 1: and he called Krupp in for a special meeting with
Speaker 1: himself and his right hand man, Otto von Bismarck. It
Speaker 1: says a lot about how valued Krupp was that the
Speaker 1: King was afraid to offend him, merely urging him not
Speaker 1: to fulfill Austria's order too quickly. But Alfred was irritated
Speaker 1: by even this, insisting that he had to fulfill his obligations. Then,
Speaker 1: sensing an opportunity for a sale, he warned the King
Speaker 1: that Prussia's defenses were inadequate. Um. So yeah, so he
Speaker 1: he tells the King like basically like, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to stop selling guns to your enemies. And then he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: by the way, your current guns aren't good enough and
Speaker 1: you might get your ass kicked in this war, maybe
Speaker 1: you should buy some more guns, which freaks out the
Speaker 1: King of Prussia. Um, but Alfred is happy about that.
Speaker 1: He writes home to his employees that evidently startled him,
Speaker 1: which was what I wanted. Um. And then, after all
Speaker 1: of this, because again Alfred cannot read a room, he
Speaker 1: asks for a loan from the crown. So he's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: kind of kind of bad at reading people. This k yeah. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the King says no, and Alfred is flummixed as to why. So.
Speaker 1: Over in France, the Emperor Napoleon the Third had been
Speaker 1: pretty psyched that Prussia and Austria were going to war.
Speaker 1: German unification terrified the French, and he had been relieved
Speaker 1: at because he thought that they were going to have
Speaker 1: like a long and bloody war that would exhaust them
Speaker 1: both and that would make France safer. But the opposite happened.
Speaker 1: The war lasted only seven weeks because you know, mainly
Speaker 1: the Prussians had a hell of a lot better guns
Speaker 1: than the Austrians, and a lot more of them. Krup
Speaker 1: cannons functioned mostly marvelously, but there were flaws with the
Speaker 1: design that only revealed themselves under battle. A handful of
Speaker 1: flawed guns exploded and killed their crews, and the sent
Speaker 1: Alfred into a depressive spiral. It provided an opportunity for
Speaker 1: the war King's war minister, a kind of unhinged advocate
Speaker 1: of brass cannons, to start demanding that preuscious switched away
Speaker 1: from steel guns and back to brass. Now desperate, Krupp
Speaker 1: offered to give the army hundreds of free guns. He
Speaker 1: found himself so anxious over the whole debacle that he
Speaker 1: fled to be with his wife in a spa town
Speaker 1: where he was incredibly out of place, and wound up
Speaker 1: embarrassing her in front of her friends. And you kind
Speaker 1: of assume, based on the context, the men that she
Speaker 1: was cheating on him with, Like he sort of shows
Speaker 1: up out of nowhere in this like crowd of people
Speaker 1: that she's like friends with and fucking and he's like
Speaker 1: bummed because his guns killed their their gunners, and it's
Speaker 1: just it's a very awkward situation. Um Thankfully, he proves
Speaker 1: himself incapable of relaxation and assumed back at home and
Speaker 1: his fifth Palace, trying to sell guns to another one
Speaker 1: of his nation's enemies, France, because he's also a man
Speaker 1: who never learns anything. Damn. In eighteen sixty eight, he
Speaker 1: showed up but yet another Paris exhibition with a brand
Speaker 1: new fourteen inch gun, which he described as a monster
Speaker 1: such as the world has never seen. The barrel alone
Speaker 1: weighed fifty tons. The powder charge for each shell was
Speaker 1: a hundred pounds. Emperor Napoleon the Third awarded krup the
Speaker 1: highest honor of the exhibition, and a bunch of fancy
Speaker 1: French military awards. He started talking about buying from Krupp
Speaker 1: and Bulk, and Alfred sent France a catalog of his wares.
Speaker 1: The Emperor kept Krups hopes, hope hopes up for months,
Speaker 1: but his generals were convinced that brass cannons were all
Speaker 1: that French France needed. The Emperor, who had written a
Speaker 1: book about the use of artillery, decided not to buy
Speaker 1: from Krupp after all and gave him a terse rejection.
Speaker 1: Alfred sank into yet another depression. He sent the giant
Speaker 1: canyon cannon he'd bought brought to the exhibition to the
Speaker 1: King of Prussia, and he sent an identical gun to
Speaker 1: the Czar in order to keep his biggest client happy.
Speaker 1: Alfred was a lot more popular internationally than he was
Speaker 1: within the bounds of Prussia. Representatives from the United States
Speaker 1: offered to let him move to Alabama and start a
Speaker 1: factory there. He turned them down. Japan and Sweden sent
Speaker 1: members of their royal families to tour his factories. Turkey, Brazil, Belgium,
Speaker 1: and Russia all showered him with awards. None of this
Speaker 1: meant much to Alfred. The only international acclaim he valued, was,
Speaker 1: of course, money and interestring So like he's in this
Speaker 1: interesting situation because the Prussian government is like constantly the
Speaker 1: actual military is constantly pushing back on buying more of
Speaker 1: his guns. But the king gets locked into an agreement
Speaker 1: with Alfred to where Prussia won't buy weapons from any
Speaker 1: other company. At the same time, Krupp is like, like,
Speaker 1: and this is because crup basically threatens them. He's like,
Speaker 1: if you buy guns from anybody else, then I will
Speaker 1: sell my guns to all of your enemies. And this
Speaker 1: is kind of weird because he's also actively trying to
Speaker 1: sell his guns to all of he's still do doing it.
Speaker 1: It's kind of weird that it works. Um, but it does. Uh,
Speaker 1: And it doesn't seem to matter to the Prussian government
Speaker 1: because Kreup at this point is tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: workers and like it's described as a state within a state,
Speaker 1: Like it's become as powerful in some ways as the
Speaker 1: government of Prussia. And this is again the first time
Speaker 1: that happens photo capitalism. Yeah, this is early capitalism. This
Speaker 1: is the first massive international arms concern, and it's so
Speaker 1: big that it's able to get the government to agree
Speaker 1: not to buy from anyone else while they're selling to
Speaker 1: all of the government's enemies. Like, that's very interesting that
Speaker 1: Alfred is able to do this, And it's because the
Speaker 1: cannons are that much better than anyone else's guns. M now,
Speaker 1: and around this same time, Alfred started designing a new
Speaker 1: home for himself. His factory had polluted essence so badly
Speaker 1: by this point that it was no longer fit for
Speaker 1: human habitation. His workers would continue to live there, of course,
Speaker 1: but Alfred wanted fresh country air. He interviewed dozens of architects,
Speaker 1: but decided in the end to go with himself. He
Speaker 1: designed a building based around three main concerns. Number one,
Speaker 1: he believed that standing or sleeping in one room for
Speaker 1: too long was toxic. He would consume all of the
Speaker 1: air and suffocate, so his house had to have hundreds
Speaker 1: of rooms. Number two, he was terrified of fire, so
Speaker 1: the entire building needed to be made from stone. And
Speaker 1: number three, he was absolutely in love with the smell
Speaker 1: of poor ship, so the hare house had to be
Speaker 1: built so that it waked the feces at all times. Beautiful,
Speaker 1: it's it's an amazing house, and it's crazy. In the sixties,
Speaker 1: when this book that I was one of the big
Speaker 1: sources for this, was written, they didn't know how many
Speaker 1: rooms it had. Like the counts of the number of
Speaker 1: rooms in this mansion varied by up to a hundred
Speaker 1: like nobody was quite sure. Because he had god, he
Speaker 1: liked to spy on people, so it had hundreds of
Speaker 1: secret passageways in and behind the rooms that he could
Speaker 1: crawl through and watch people while they were in his houts.
Speaker 1: People would just like wake up in the morning and
Speaker 1: he would have notes in their bedroom about their behavior
Speaker 1: the day before. Yeah, he's he rules, Uh, you gotta
Speaker 1: love Alfred, but I want to about in the making. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So from the arms of quote, he gave a lot
Speaker 1: of thought to this, this being how to get as
Speaker 1: much horseshit smell into the house as possible. And then
Speaker 1: it came to him in in a flash, what an idea.
Speaker 1: He could build his study directly over the stable with
Speaker 1: shafts to waf the scent upward. And that is precisely
Speaker 1: what he decided to do, crowing so to speak on
Speaker 1: his private dunghill. Jeez, fucking dude loves horseshit. And it's
Speaker 1: funny because like damn, all these kings and queens come
Speaker 1: to visit him and stay at his house, and like
Speaker 1: they all comment that like fucking smells like ship here
Speaker 1: when it's wronger this guy, and thank you, it does smell,
Speaker 1: and they can't do anything, like they can't not go
Speaker 1: because he's the guy with the guns you have. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's a very strange situation, but it is an
Speaker 1: evidence that if you're rich and successful enough, you can
Speaker 1: make everybody indulge your like very bizarre our whims. Eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy came and in June of that year, Prince Leopold
Speaker 1: of Holands all Learned decided to accept the job of
Speaker 1: being Spain's king, because apparently that's how royalty worked in
Speaker 1: those days. This really pissed France off because they didn't
Speaker 1: like the idea of being surrounded on both sides by
Speaker 1: Germanic monarchs. The Fridge Foreign Minister threatened Berlin, and the
Speaker 1: King of Prussia backed down and asked his son to
Speaker 1: not accept the offer to be the king of Spain.
Speaker 1: But this was not enough for France. France in fact
Speaker 1: demanded a royal apology from the King of Prussia. This
Speaker 1: was a bridge too far for the King of Prussia
Speaker 1: and he refused. He drafted up a telegram and he
Speaker 1: handed it to Otto von Bismarck, who was basically like
Speaker 1: Ottos like the prime minister. He's like basically the guy
Speaker 1: running the country for the king. And Otto decides that
Speaker 1: this this telegram isn't defensive enough and so he edits
Speaker 1: It to make it basically a declaration of war because
Speaker 1: there was a bunch of French territory he'd been eyeing
Speaker 1: a while he wanted to like take it over for Germany.
Speaker 1: And he also wanted to test out the German military
Speaker 1: because at this point, France is the pre eminent military
Speaker 1: force in Europe. A generation or so earlier, they've taken
Speaker 1: on the entire rest of the continent, and one for
Speaker 1: the most part right up until the end. And Bismarck
Speaker 1: wanted to prove that Germany was now the stronger military force,
Speaker 1: and he calculated that France was not as strong as
Speaker 1: she thought she was, particularly in the crucial realm of artillery.
Speaker 1: And he also kind of thought that this war would
Speaker 1: be a good opportunity to finally unify Germany as a
Speaker 1: single political entity for the first time in history. Bismarck
Speaker 1: was the guy who had orchestrated Prussia kind of gobbling
Speaker 1: up all of these German kingdoms, and he saw war
Speaker 1: with France is basically the same. Like so for Bismarck
Speaker 1: in this period, he spent his whole life cobbling together
Speaker 1: this what what becomes Germany, and he sees war with
Speaker 1: France is like the equivalent of a dude with a
Speaker 1: low rider sees a fiesta parking lot like it's a
Speaker 1: place to show off this Germany that he's built. So
Speaker 1: that's that's kind of what Bismarck does. And so what
Speaker 1: is basically starts as one king asking another to apologize
Speaker 1: and the other king saying no, turns into a war
Speaker 1: that kills hundreds of thousands of people as a result
Speaker 1: of all this, which is awesome, okay, okay, worth it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: totally worth it. So at the time, everyone expects France
Speaker 1: to win. Newspapers, all right, that the Prussian causes doomed.
Speaker 1: German peasants cut their corn down early, certain that French
Speaker 1: invaders would soon be stomping through their fields. Instead, what
Speaker 1: followed was a slaughter. The French had better rifles, but
Speaker 1: they had brass cannons and the Germans had steel, crooked cannons,
Speaker 1: and that turned out to be all that really mattered.
Speaker 1: The whole war came down to a siege in a
Speaker 1: city called Mets, and I'm gonna write about read about
Speaker 1: that from an article in World Crunch that kind of
Speaker 1: contextualizes this battle. Modern warfare began in eighteen seventy at
Speaker 1: the Siege of Metz, the first the final battle in
Speaker 1: the Franco Prussian War. It was the first time that
Speaker 1: the true scale of industrial metallurgical death revealed its true potential.
Speaker 1: Over two months, the Prussian artillery bombarded French troops hold
Speaker 1: up in the city's fortifications. The Wheach army had the
Speaker 1: same number of cannons the bronze artillery of Napoleon the
Speaker 1: Third's army was no match for the range, accuracy, and
Speaker 1: durability of pruscious steel cannon. Some hundred and ninety three
Speaker 1: thousand French soldiers were killed to the Prussians five thousand,
Speaker 1: seven hundred and forty casualties. After mess came to Siege
Speaker 1: of Paris, the collapse of the Napoleonic dynasty, the unification
Speaker 1: of Germany, and the birth of the Second Reich. So
Speaker 1: this battle is very we don't like nobody fucking talks
Speaker 1: about the eighteen seventy Franco Prussian War. It's one of
Speaker 1: the most important wars in history. Because Germany comes out
Speaker 1: of it. They declare Germany in Versailles. The reason that
Speaker 1: World War One ends with the Treaty of Versailles is
Speaker 1: because the Germans humiliate the French here in eighteen seventy
Speaker 1: sign a treaty in Versailles that leads to the creation
Speaker 1: of Germany, and fucking two generations later, the French want
Speaker 1: to do the same thing in Versailles when they beat Germany.
Speaker 1: Like that's that's why that all happens. It all starts here.
Speaker 1: And this is the first modern battle and the first
Speaker 1: modern death toll. Right before then, a hundred three thousand
Speaker 1: was like an insane number of people to die in
Speaker 1: a in a war, let alone, like a long battle. Um.
Speaker 1: And in here it's like one part of the war. Um.
Speaker 1: It's just like this, this tremendous death toll that had
Speaker 1: not been seen earlier in the same kind of time frame.
Speaker 1: It's just it's it's it's a fucking nightmare. Um And yeah,
Speaker 1: like it's uh, this is like where the modern world
Speaker 1: is kind of borne out of this battle, and it's
Speaker 1: born because of krupt cannons, because there was so much
Speaker 1: better than the brass cannons the French had. It really
Speaker 1: did just come down to that. Now France had been
Speaker 1: on the cusp of building its own steel cannons via
Speaker 1: its own giant Arms company Schneider, but their production was
Speaker 1: halted before they could get out in time for the
Speaker 1: war because of a communist strike, and so you can
Speaker 1: actually say that communism helped lead to the birth of
Speaker 1: the German state as a result of this, which is
Speaker 1: another interesting little tidbits. Yeah, so corrupt guns would get
Speaker 1: another chance to impress the world and kill a funkload
Speaker 1: of people after the actual fighting had mostly ended. See,
Speaker 1: the emperor himself was captured, you know, in the battles
Speaker 1: before this, and his army routed, but the city of
Speaker 1: Paris refused to surrender, and there was kind of like
Speaker 1: a revolution in this city. Is like we're going to
Speaker 1: take back France on our own, like funk our emperor
Speaker 1: and stuff like we'll we'll fight the Germans um, which
Speaker 1: is of course like a swell. It's pretty suicidal because
Speaker 1: Krupp has these you know, we've been talking about these
Speaker 1: giant guns he's been building just to show off. Well,
Speaker 1: now they get used and they're not any use on
Speaker 1: a battlefield because they have ranges that are measured in miles,
Speaker 1: but they're long enough away that you can be outside
Speaker 1: of a city and level the city from like five
Speaker 1: miles away and that had never been done before. So
Speaker 1: what you see with the Siege of Paris is a
Speaker 1: sneak peek to how Warwood looks seventy years later, when
Speaker 1: you have you know, bombers reigning down bombs on cities
Speaker 1: from miles up. This is the same thing, but with
Speaker 1: artillery on the ground, just blowing the ship up out
Speaker 1: of Paris without troops ever entering the city. Oh god, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the first time that happens, thanks to Alfred Krupp. Okay, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's good stuff. We're gonna talk a little bit more
Speaker 1: about how he murdered a whole on to people. But first,
Speaker 1: you know, who doesn't shell Paris from five miles away?
Speaker 1: Who the products and services that support this podcast. We're
Speaker 1: back and we're talking about the siege of Paris. So
Speaker 1: again as saying, this is like the first time that
Speaker 1: a city is destroyed from a distance without troops ever entering.
Speaker 1: It as like a military tactic, and it was very
Speaker 1: controversial at the time. Bismarck was immediately like, yeah, just
Speaker 1: just kill everybody in Paris if they resist, and his
Speaker 1: generals were like, well, that's a that's a crime, sir um.
Speaker 1: But eventually they decided to do it. And yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: going to read a quote from Hate Winds. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it always does. Um, so I'm gonna find I'm gonna
Speaker 1: read a quote from a collection of eyewitness accounts from
Speaker 1: the Siege of Paris that were gathered by Salem College.
Speaker 1: Quote a Colonel Heitzler and his wife. We're giving breakfast
Speaker 1: at Avrone to several friends. A servant being in the room.
Speaker 1: One of the guests was laughing with the hostess and said, no, butters, certainly,
Speaker 1: but there may be a shell in its place. And
Speaker 1: as he spoke, a shell burst in the room, killed
Speaker 1: six of the party and wounded severely the host and hostess,
Speaker 1: and only the doctor of the regiment and the servant
Speaker 1: got off unscathed. The remains of the six came just
Speaker 1: now to valde Grass Hospital, but it was such a
Speaker 1: human ruin that no individuality could be recognized. Prussians are
Speaker 1: firing with eight e guns, some of them being hundred
Speaker 1: and twelve pounders, ranging from three miles to half three
Speaker 1: miles and a half to four miles. So they're just
Speaker 1: killing anybody and everybody. Yeah, they're just showing. They're dropping
Speaker 1: hundred and twelve pound explosive shells on a city, blindly
Speaker 1: shooting into it. Jesus until people don't want to fight anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as terrifying. Yeah again, this would not have been possible
Speaker 1: without Alfred Krupp's invention, and this would become the norm.
Speaker 1: This is the Norman warfare. Now you talk about the
Speaker 1: Siege of Rocca, it was U S artillery pounding Rocca
Speaker 1: from miles away in order to clear out the Islamic state.
Speaker 1: And also all of the civilians who happened to me,
Speaker 1: I watched some of this ship happened in Moses like
Speaker 1: this has been war ever since, and it starts here
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy thanks to the steel canons of Krupp.
Speaker 1: That's sad. It's cool ship. It is cool ship. Archibald Forbes,
Speaker 1: of war correspondent with the London Daily News, had this
Speaker 1: to say. He was there in Paris at the time
Speaker 1: and he had seen like bunches of wars previous to this,
Speaker 1: but they've been like the little bit of European wars.
Speaker 1: We have like a bunch of lines of guys shoot
Speaker 1: at each other with shitty rifles and like a couple
Speaker 1: of hundred die and then your war is done right now,
Speaker 1: he's in the middle of the first modern slaughter. And
Speaker 1: here's what he writes. The terrible ghastliness of those dead
Speaker 1: transcended anything I had ever seen or even dreamed of
Speaker 1: in the shuddering nightmare after my first battlefield. Remember how
Speaker 1: they had been slain. Not with the nimble bullet of
Speaker 1: the needle gun that drills a minute hole through a
Speaker 1: man and leaves him undisfigured unless it has chanced to
Speaker 1: strike his face, Not with the sharp stab of the bayonet,
Speaker 1: but slaughtered with missiles of terrible weight, shattered into fragments
Speaker 1: by explosions of many pounds of powder, mangled and torn
Speaker 1: by massive fragments of iron. Huh. Yeah, it's the first
Speaker 1: modern modern deaths. That's how everybody dies. Now. It's good stuff. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's fucking rules. So cities have been ravaged by war before,
Speaker 1: but eighteen seventy marked the first time one was wrecked
Speaker 1: by soldiers who never even entered the city's borders. Far
Speaker 1: from horrifying the planet, it ignited a tremendous hunger for
Speaker 1: krupt guns. So people see this fucking slaughter instead of
Speaker 1: being like, you guys just murdered a bunch of civilians
Speaker 1: and broke all the laws of war. They're like, I
Speaker 1: gotta get some of those fucking cannons. I need some
Speaker 1: of that ship. Give me those, Give me those motherfucker's. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this guy is really good at making guns. Look at
Speaker 1: how many dead people there are in Paris. It's great. Sucks.
Speaker 1: This is not one of our more optimistic about people episodes.
Speaker 1: It sure isn't. At least government suck and a lot
Speaker 1: of the tists. Yeah. So from the arms of Krupt
Speaker 1: quote krup cannon became the new status symbol of nations.
Speaker 1: Turkey used them to guard the Bosphorus Romania to protect
Speaker 1: the forty bastions of Bucharest. According to legend, Tiny and
Speaker 1: Dora bought a long range gun and then discovered that
Speaker 1: it couldn't be fired without hitting French soil. In eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy three, the Corrupt Work payroll was half again as
Speaker 1: large as in eighteen seventy. The firm had surpassed the
Speaker 1: peak of its wartime production. Then came the Sino Japanese
Speaker 1: War Scare of eighteen seventy four. In eighteen seventy five,
Speaker 1: the first in a long series of plums which fell
Speaker 1: into Alfred's lap. Tokyo had purchased cannon from Schneider, and
Speaker 1: the Chinese warlords had been buying from Armstrong, but by
Speaker 1: now memoirs of men who had fought at Sadan Mets
Speaker 1: in Paris those are all battles from eighteen seventy were
Speaker 1: being read over the globe. When Krupp wrote flattering letters
Speaker 1: to Lee Hong Chang, the Bismarck of Asia, and sent
Speaker 1: him a model railroad. Lee responded by ordering two hundred
Speaker 1: seventy five field guns, another hundred fifty cannon to arm
Speaker 1: the Taku fort guarding the approach to Tiensen, and a
Speaker 1: complete armament for eight warships. And gratitude. Alfred hung over
Speaker 1: the head of his bed a portrait of Lee, despite
Speaker 1: his fear of combustible combustible objects in the castle. Word,
Speaker 1: if his Chinese coup reached Potstam, Krupp tells governments what
Speaker 1: they must buy. If governments were poor enough, He really did.
Speaker 1: Backward countries were given shipments of obsolete weapons despite the
Speaker 1: huge bill paid by Asia's Bismarck. Li Hong Cheng didn't
Speaker 1: receive Essen's latest model, which was being delivered to St. Petersburg.
Speaker 1: That winter, the Taku forts got outdated cannon and a
Speaker 1: handsome order from bang Hawk was filled. From the same prescription,
Speaker 1: Alfred wrote, tartly Chinese and Siamese can blow their enemies
Speaker 1: to bits well enough with these. Wow. Yeah, send the
Speaker 1: shitty guns that explode sometimes to the Asians. They're not white, damn. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a real piece of ship. Yep. Yeah, he's a
Speaker 1: terrible Person's a piece of horse ship. Sorry, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: don't say that. He that's that's a compliment. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: would love to hear that. You tell him he's a
Speaker 1: piece of horse. He would say thank you, yes. But
Speaker 1: to everyone else, yeah, except for they have to pretend
Speaker 1: it to like it, because they want his guns fair enough, Krupp.
Speaker 1: One of the things I guess that is kind of
Speaker 1: heartening here is that as successful as he was, Krupp
Speaker 1: was fundamentally incapable of taking any pleasure in his success.
Speaker 1: He always found new things to worry about. And in
Speaker 1: the Yeah, as the eighteen seventies rolled on, this thing
Speaker 1: was communism. So in eighteen seventy one, like, I love
Speaker 1: that there's no like guilty conscious going on. It's like
Speaker 1: it's not worried about how his guns are gonna sell.
Speaker 1: He is incapable. The only thing he ever feels guilt
Speaker 1: about is when his guns blow up and kill German crews.
Speaker 1: M M yeah, Um, he's a good dude, so he
Speaker 1: starts flipping out about He thought communism was pretty funny
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy when the French went on strike and
Speaker 1: they didn't get their steel cannons in time. But in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy one, the Social Democratic Party goes on strike
Speaker 1: in Germany and threatens to shut down the minds that
Speaker 1: brought Krupp his iron and coal. Alfred was furious. He
Speaker 1: issued a company directive that neither now nor at any
Speaker 1: future time would a former striker be allowed to work
Speaker 1: for Krupp. He was kind of enough to recognize that
Speaker 1: strikes and communist sympathy among workers were caused by the
Speaker 1: fact that a lot of workers were miserable and desperate.
Speaker 1: He decided to address this by issuing a groundbreaking list
Speaker 1: that he called his General Regulations. These guaranteed his permanent
Speaker 1: employees a pension, healthcare, old age care, and a variety
Speaker 1: of other benefits that we now look together as part
Speaker 1: of a social safety net. He invents welfare. Basically, he's
Speaker 1: he's the first company to do a pension. Is see
Speaker 1: if this was to be made into a movie, that's
Speaker 1: the only thing that they would yeah, that they would
Speaker 1: say about him and ignoring all the weapons ship well
Speaker 1: and where it's not as good as it sounds. So
Speaker 1: he sends out a list of these benefits to his
Speaker 1: employees in part to make sure that they won't strike.
Speaker 1: But the list aren't mostly benefits. They're mostly a list
Speaker 1: of obligations that the workers have to the company. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he like really focuses on what the companies owe
Speaker 1: the firm, and he liberally threatens his workers throughout the document.
Speaker 1: As in this passage, the full force of a of
Speaker 1: authority must be used to to suppress disloyalty and conspiracy.
Speaker 1: Those who commit unworthy acts must never be permitted to
Speaker 1: feel safe, must never escape public disgrace. Good, like wickedness,
Speaker 1: should be examined through a microscope, for their truth is
Speaker 1: to be found. Even as a seed bears fruit and
Speaker 1: direct ratio to the nourishment or poison it is given.
Speaker 1: So it is that from the spirit that an act
Speaker 1: benigner evil arises. And again the act that is evil.
Speaker 1: He's talking about is like unionizing um, which is yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: the more corrupt played with the idea of his general regulations,
Speaker 1: the more they turned into a corporate dictatorship. He decided
Speaker 1: that his company was entitled because he was now paying
Speaker 1: them pensions and stuff. His company was entitled to an
Speaker 1: employee's full and undivided energy, and he gradually came to
Speaker 1: feel that that meant CRUP should be the entire focus
Speaker 1: of a CRUP employees life. To that end, he developed
Speaker 1: housing colonies for his employees, each building named after a
Speaker 1: CRUP ancestor. He built a bread factory, a wine store,
Speaker 1: a butcher plant, and even a hotel. This city of
Speaker 1: Essen turned into an extension of Alfred Krupp's personal property.
Speaker 1: From his vantage point, the best thing about providing all
Speaker 1: of these services to his employees was that he could
Speaker 1: take them away from workers who did things he's disproved
Speaker 1: of and destroy their entire lives. A dismissed employee lost everything,
Speaker 1: even his pension and of course his company home. Alfred
Speaker 1: wrote to the Kaiser that this system would quote be
Speaker 1: useful for the prevention of socialistic errors, because you lose
Speaker 1: your whole life if you get fired now. Damn kind
Speaker 1: of true today. Yeah, thanks, Alfred, Yeah, not not much different.
Speaker 1: He's a trailblazer, not not like an Alfred Right now.
Speaker 1: To help further prevent those errors, Krupp instituted a program
Speaker 1: of snooping, the first centralized workplace espionage program. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: talk about like the night early nineteen late eight hundred,
Speaker 1: early night, like the eighteen nineties through the nineteen twenties.
Speaker 1: This is huge in the United States. The Pinkerton's are
Speaker 1: a big deal. Kruff is doing this in the early
Speaker 1: eighteen seventies. He's he's the first company to have an
Speaker 1: organized program of spy. Yeah, yeah, very ahead of his time. Today,
Speaker 1: companies like the Pinkerton's provide corporations like Amazon with surveillance
Speaker 1: of workers who might win a unionize. And that starts
Speaker 1: with Krupp, who ordered, quote a constant, quiet observation of
Speaker 1: the spirit of our workers, so that we cannot miss
Speaker 1: the beginning of any ferment anywhere. And I must demand
Speaker 1: that if the cleverest and best workman or foreman even
Speaker 1: looks as though he wants to raise objections or belongs
Speaker 1: to one of those unions, he shall be discharged as
Speaker 1: quickly as practicable without consideration of whether he can be spared. Wow. Wow,
Speaker 1: he's a fucking cool dude. Let's just go to ads
Speaker 1: and not think too much about any of this. We're back.
Speaker 1: I love not thinking too deeply about history. Um So again,
Speaker 1: a lot of as nice as some of these social
Speaker 1: welfare things sound on the surface, a lot of them
Speaker 1: are really very negative and abusive. But I do have
Speaker 1: to give Alfred credit for something which is that inspired
Speaker 1: by the rules that Alfred puts in for his company
Speaker 1: and the social like welfare that he gives his workers,
Speaker 1: Otto von Bismarck introduces a series of landmark German social
Speaker 1: welfare legislation that is like based on the general regulations
Speaker 1: that Alfred writes, and those become the backbone of all
Speaker 1: German social security to this day. The entire German welfare
Speaker 1: state starts because of Alfred Krupp, like he he inspired,
Speaker 1: like writes down the initial laws that become the backbone
Speaker 1: of everything that has done later, which is like something
Speaker 1: you have to make note of. I guess he doesn't
Speaker 1: do it for a good reason, but he does do it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, wow right, yeah, it's it's it's fun. Um Now, Obviously,
Speaker 1: even that is more problematic than it might sound. Um,
Speaker 1: And I'm going to quote from the arms of Krupp here.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eleven, the Reich's workman Insurance Code was extended
Speaker 1: to all laborhoods. Extended to was to extend to all
Speaker 1: labors the rights that Krupp had given his men nearly
Speaker 1: four decades before. And the following year Kaiser Wilhelm the
Speaker 1: Second declared an essen that the Iron Chancellor Bismarck had
Speaker 1: been prodded by Krupp. Echoes of the general regulations were
Speaker 1: to be heard in the third Reich. Hitler wrote in
Speaker 1: Mind comp that his own program had begun with a
Speaker 1: study of Bismarck's social reforms, and the slogan of the
Speaker 1: Fewer's Labor Front leader Robert Ley community spirit must be drilled,
Speaker 1: was taken almost verbatim from Alfred's fourth article, So both
Speaker 1: the Kaiser. Long after Alfred's death, both the Kaiser and
Speaker 1: Hitler copy his labor reforms not because they care about
Speaker 1: the workers, but because they're a good way to prevent
Speaker 1: communism from taking place, because they provide just enough security
Speaker 1: that it makes people not want to unionize. And yeah,
Speaker 1: a little more complacent, and the Nazis recognized this and
Speaker 1: almost copy him word for word in some pet places
Speaker 1: like yeah, it's good stuff. Good stuff would have made
Speaker 1: a pretty good dictator. He would have made it. He
Speaker 1: was basically a dictator, and he would have made a
Speaker 1: fantastic Nazi. I mean his his his son was an
Speaker 1: amazing like his like grandson, I guess was an amazing Nazi.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, his grandson was a huge Nazi, big,
Speaker 1: big solid Nazi. Uh great, a solid Nazi. Did he
Speaker 1: inherit the horseship thing? Or was that just no? I
Speaker 1: think that was just Alfred. Yeah, yeah, it's a little peculiar.
Speaker 1: Still stuff, it's weird. So Krupp himself never lived to
Speaker 1: see the lot rise of the Third Reich, but his
Speaker 1: descendants loved it, and there's no reason I think he
Speaker 1: wouldn't also have loved it. He Yeah. He wrote this
Speaker 1: in reference to the German Social Democratic Party, which, in
Speaker 1: spite of his best efforts, rose throughout Germany. In his
Speaker 1: later life, I wish somebody with great gifts would start
Speaker 1: a counter revolution for the best of the people, with
Speaker 1: flying columns, labor battalions of young men. He's saying, he
Speaker 1: wants a Nazi party. Like that's what that statement is, is, like,
Speaker 1: there's too many fucking liberals. I wish somebody would start
Speaker 1: a counter revolution with like flying columns of young men
Speaker 1: ready to beat the ship out of socialists. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: definitely what humanity needs as a solution to things. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when he's crying out for somebody with great gifts, he's
Speaker 1: he's crying out for Hitler, Like that's who he Like,
Speaker 1: he doesn't know it at the time, but that's who
Speaker 1: he's begging for. What if he like built Hitler himself
Speaker 1: out of like a bunch of horseshit. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: in a way, he kind of did. He certainly was
Speaker 1: one of the people made Yeah, he was one of
Speaker 1: the people who made you know, Hitler possible. Obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't get a Hitler without a lot of people
Speaker 1: wanting a Hitler and a lot of ground work had
Speaker 1: to be laid. But Alfred's one of the guys who's
Speaker 1: down there plugging away to make Germany ready for a Hitler.
Speaker 1: That is absolutely fair to say. Alfred was a staunch
Speaker 1: opponent of democracy. He wanted the abolishment of universal human stuff,
Speaker 1: Ridge and the franchise to vote withdrawn from people without property.
Speaker 1: He urged his workers to ignore politics and put up
Speaker 1: notices in his factory that a vote for the Social
Speaker 1: Democratic Party was a vote for the idle, dissolute, and incompetent.
Speaker 1: He went on to advise them, enjoy what you have
Speaker 1: when work is over. Stay in the circle of your family,
Speaker 1: with your wife, children and the old people, and think
Speaker 1: about the household problems and education. Let that be your politics.
Speaker 1: Then you will be happy. But spare yourself the excitement
Speaker 1: of big cut. Questions of national policy, issues of high
Speaker 1: policy require more time and knowledge than the workman has
Speaker 1: at his command. You're too dumb to think about politics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when the Social Democrats, yeah, he's not. He himself is
Speaker 1: a pretty smart guy. When the Social Democrats won seats
Speaker 1: in the reichs doug anyway, he fired thirty men for
Speaker 1: suspicion of socialism. Now in his late sixties, Crupp became
Speaker 1: a tyrant, cracking down or rationally on anything that seemed
Speaker 1: like the scent. Periodically he would flee Essen and his
Speaker 1: company for weeks at a time, hiding in his terrible
Speaker 1: house and sending missives out. He would invite p belover
Speaker 1: and then refused to see them, spying on them secretly
Speaker 1: through hidden chambers in his home and leaving them notes
Speaker 1: critiquing their behavior. Once, when an unmarried couple flirted in
Speaker 1: his home, they woke up to find a sheet of
Speaker 1: paper with his handwriting on it in their bedroom telling
Speaker 1: them that a carriage was ready to take them away
Speaker 1: because they kissing and ship. Yeah, he's a weird dude.
Speaker 1: In short, Alfred Krupp lost his damn mind. His wild
Speaker 1: success brought him a kind of megalomania. He mortgaged the
Speaker 1: company near the breaking point to buy up almost every
Speaker 1: mine in Germany on the notion that he must secure
Speaker 1: for his descendants a hundred years worth of raw materials
Speaker 1: to keep the company running. He threatened to sue employees
Speaker 1: who left Krupp for another company, and even attempted to
Speaker 1: have it made illegal for people to switch employers. Like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, Yeah, he's out of his damn mind
Speaker 1: by the time he's like in his fifties and sixties. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote from the arms of Krupp again here.
Speaker 1: Since he was providing his employees with homes, schools, hospitals,
Speaker 1: and food, he reasoned that they're hours away from work
Speaker 1: belonged to him too. It is an astonishing fact that
Speaker 1: most of them agreed, or at any rate right displayed
Speaker 1: no signs of mutiny. There is no evidence that he
Speaker 1: provoked either indignation or amusement with what was, by any yardstick,
Speaker 1: his most extraordinary order to the men of my works.
Speaker 1: He had been thinking it over, he said, it had
Speaker 1: come to the conclusion that a faithful workman's place of
Speaker 1: work included the marriage bed. Just as the sole proprietor
Speaker 1: was acquiring enough raw materials to last the house of
Speaker 1: Krupp for the next ninety nine years, so must every
Speaker 1: conscientious CRUP employee strive to provide the state with plenty
Speaker 1: of loyal subjects and to develop a special breed of
Speaker 1: men for the works. In other words, you owe me
Speaker 1: a duty to have kids so that I have employees
Speaker 1: in the future and my children have employees. Damn, this
Speaker 1: is messed up. Yeah, it's it's really bad. He's terrible,
Speaker 1: and a lot like Jeff Bezas. He's just open homeless
Speaker 1: shelters for Amazon employees. So the continued success of the
Speaker 1: social Democrats through Alfred into a constant rage in his
Speaker 1: waning years, he ran for election and lost amidst a
Speaker 1: massive leftward swing that saw the SPD. The Social Democratic
Speaker 1: Party allied with the Centrist Party to try and block
Speaker 1: a landmark military appropriations bill that would have been a
Speaker 1: lot of money for Alfred. Alfred became incredibly invested in
Speaker 1: that year's elections, pushing his employees to vote for an
Speaker 1: approved mandate and going so far as to have the
Speaker 1: local elections Commission, which he controlled, issue marked ballots so
Speaker 1: he could punish any employee who voted the wrong way.
Speaker 1: And yet still his candidate, who was his son at
Speaker 1: this point, lost and the Social Democrats gained seats. Alfred
Speaker 1: threatened to dynamite his entire factory and had to be
Speaker 1: argued down by his employees, who pointed out that the
Speaker 1: Nationalists were still in charge and we're still going to
Speaker 1: pass the appropriations bill, so it was kind of stupid
Speaker 1: to blow up his entire factory just because they were
Speaker 1: slightly less overwhelmingly in charge than they had been before.
Speaker 1: But he's that kind of guy, like, you're still in power,
Speaker 1: but other people have had political success, so you want
Speaker 1: to blow up your own factory. Like he's yeah, he
Speaker 1: is kind of trumpy um, and the fact that the
Speaker 1: SPD still existed and seemed to be gaining ground kind
Speaker 1: of bro Alfred. He posted a note in his shop
Speaker 1: that stated, the next time I go through the works,
Speaker 1: I want to feel at home, and I would rather
Speaker 1: see the place empty than to find some fellow with
Speaker 1: venom in his heart, such as every social democrat is.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, it's like maybe a little bit of it
Speaker 1: might be putting that a little bit, uh, projecting a
Speaker 1: little bit there, buddy, Like yeah. So next he hired
Speaker 1: inspectors to go through all the trash and his workshops
Speaker 1: and his worker housing projects and comb for literature critical
Speaker 1: of either company management or the German government. An old
Speaker 1: man who had worked as a corrupt night watchman for
Speaker 1: thirty three years was fired, so was a worker whose
Speaker 1: landlady had wrapped his lunch in a newspaper Alfred disliked.
Speaker 1: Alfred considered this program a great success, and so he
Speaker 1: hired a new inspector to go through the used toilet
Speaker 1: paper to see if socialists had left any notes in
Speaker 1: the bathroom Like it's he's fucking out of his mind
Speaker 1: at this point, um, And it's weird because like the
Speaker 1: left never harmed his business in any way. In fact,
Speaker 1: the last decade or so of his life was the
Speaker 1: most profitable period in CRUP history to date. At least
Speaker 1: fifteen little wars broke out and involving countries he sold
Speaker 1: arms to. Sometimes his clients even fought. Yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: he loved this. Yeah. So the Russio Turkish War happens
Speaker 1: from eighteen seventy to eighteen seventy eight, and Krupp had
Speaker 1: sold guns to both sides, and so he starts asking
Speaker 1: both sides for testimonials both so he can improve the
Speaker 1: killing power of his weapons. And he takes these like
Speaker 1: testimonials from Russians and from Turks about how deadly his
Speaker 1: guns are, and he sends them to every member of
Speaker 1: the English House of Commons, and he's like, why are
Speaker 1: you guys buying British guns when my guns are so
Speaker 1: much better? Like look at how good, look at how
Speaker 1: good they are at killing my customers, Like you should
Speaker 1: be buying guns for me. Geez, like drawing little pictures
Speaker 1: like everything hurt this guy. Yeah, boom nico boom on him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a little bit, it's just yeah, he's kind of
Speaker 1: obsessed with England. Too, so he's very frustrated that they
Speaker 1: never do buy his weapons. By the late eighteen eighties,
Speaker 1: Alfred was constantly ill in more than half mad. He
Speaker 1: spent his twilight years constructing and attempting to sell what
Speaker 1: was basically an enormous stationary tank. It was just a
Speaker 1: giant armored gun that couldn't move and was wrapped in
Speaker 1: so much armor that it was basically destructible. During demonstrations,
Speaker 1: Alfred would sit inside it and wait while his own
Speaker 1: gunners shot him with artillery shells. Despite this display, nobody
Speaker 1: bought a single one of his guns. He hatched hatched
Speaker 1: another scheme to create hollow islands topped by armored guns
Speaker 1: that he was going to use to blow up boats.
Speaker 1: But everyone was like, these are crazy, And eventually his
Speaker 1: son instructed the factory to ignore any further communications from
Speaker 1: his father because he had just gone mad. Uh Krupp
Speaker 1: finally ceased to rule the arms factory that had been
Speaker 1: his entire life's work, and he died almost immediately after that,
Speaker 1: on July seven, from a heart attack. And that's the
Speaker 1: story of Alfred Krupp. Wow, Yeah, he lived so long
Speaker 1: for a horseshit guy, for a guy who breathed in
Speaker 1: nothing but industrial poisons and horseshit his whole life. Maybe
Speaker 1: there's something too that ship thing. Yeah, maybe he wasn't wrong.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna not try that, but let me know how
Speaker 1: that goes. Yeah yeah, somebody else wouldn't have to try it. Yeah, yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 1: So that's the story of the man who made everything
Speaker 1: else that happened in the twentieth century possible damn good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the guy who helped in invent Germany. So him
Speaker 1: and Bertha did have a kid, Yeah, no, he had.
Speaker 1: He had a couple of kids with her, and the
Speaker 1: kids mostly Actually, the reason they finally split is in
Speaker 1: two she asks him to um like she comes to him,
Speaker 1: he's like, hey, our son wants to get married. And
Speaker 1: it was to a woman that Alfred didn't like because
Speaker 1: he didn't like anybody, and he was like no, and
Speaker 1: she packed up all of her ship and left for
Speaker 1: good and it broke his heart and she never talked
Speaker 1: to him again, even though he like let his kid
Speaker 1: get married after that. Um because he's again just like
Speaker 1: a like a cussed piece of ship who was incapable
Speaker 1: of like hated being with himself and as a result,
Speaker 1: it was miserable to be around, and so nobody could
Speaker 1: be with him, and he just spent his entire waning
Speaker 1: years designing increasingly impossible weapons. Jeez, all he could think
Speaker 1: about as an old man because he had nothing else.
Speaker 1: All he could think about as an old man was
Speaker 1: how to make more ways for other people to kill
Speaker 1: each other. What a life for in existence? Could have
Speaker 1: been the train track guy, Alfred, But instead you're the
Speaker 1: guy who people killed. What a waste of being a
Speaker 1: smart person. Yeah, if he just made better ways for
Speaker 1: people to travel, everybody, Alfred crap, the train guy. What
Speaker 1: a cool dude. Yeah yeah, but no, that is not
Speaker 1: the way the story ends. So how are you feeling
Speaker 1: taking it all in, absorbing all of these facts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had no idea. Yeah, yeah, this is definitely a
Speaker 1: little bit more German history nerd uh for our podcast.
Speaker 1: I should also state for the record that Alfred was
Speaker 1: pretty anti Semitic, but also so was everyone at the time.
Speaker 1: Like I don't get the sense that like he was
Speaker 1: different from literally every other person in German and that
Speaker 1: right right right, Like he like everybody's racist against Jewish
Speaker 1: people in Germany in the eighteen seventies. You know, history
Speaker 1: has shown it's pretty easy to be Anicomitic. They were
Speaker 1: that racist in France and England, in America too, something
Speaker 1: about us in Russia, Turkey, everywhere, but China pretty it
Speaker 1: wasn't anti China. China was good about In fact, there
Speaker 1: was there was I forget which city, but one of
Speaker 1: the coastal cities in China had like a huge Jewish
Speaker 1: population by the time World War two broke out, because
Speaker 1: like the Chinese actually liked having Jewish people in their cities,
Speaker 1: and then of course the Japanese killed all those people
Speaker 1: to please the Germans, and it was just like this
Speaker 1: horrible thing, and that's why we eat Chinese food on Christmas.
Speaker 1: And the China after that massacre, after like the city
Speaker 1: was retaken, China build a giant monument to the murdered
Speaker 1: Jews of that city because they felt bad about it.
Speaker 1: Because yeah, there's that, there's that, but everybody else unbelievably
Speaker 1: racist against juan people. But yeah, Krupp is not like
Speaker 1: a trailblazer in his as. Yeah, yeah, he's just kind
Speaker 1: of like joining the mob on that one. Yeah, at
Speaker 1: this point in time, anti Semitism is like liking Rick
Speaker 1: and Morty. It's just not at all worth acknowledging. Okay,
Speaker 1: so Alison, you've got any pluggables to plug? I mean
Speaker 1: I will speaking of Jews, plug my uitable original like Mother.
Speaker 1: It's very Jewish. I mean, I will say that's the
Speaker 1: that's the most positive statement that's ever come after the
Speaker 1: words speaking of juice. Normally that does not lead to
Speaker 1: something good. Well, here we go. I'll give it to you.
Speaker 1: Uh if you want to listen to a mother daughter
Speaker 1: comedy called Like Mother that starts me and comedy legend
Speaker 1: Susie Esman, then there you go. There you go, check
Speaker 1: out that, check out everything and check out I don't know, cannons.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's a bad thing to check out. Cannons.
Speaker 1: Don't check out horseshit. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I like
Speaker 1: to be honest, I much prefer people have a lot
Speaker 1: of horseshit than a lot of cannons. I mean, fair
Speaker 1: enough at the point, Yeah, what about cannons, but instead
Speaker 1: of like cannon balls, it's big horseship balls. He didn't
Speaker 1: come up with that, just fling horseshit at the enemy
Speaker 1: to try to give them better ideas. Yeah, weirdo what
Speaker 1: a fucking weirdo,