The word "aid" should be in quotation marks. First of all, it must be made clear that we don’t even have a single bolt. We got it for nothing. We didn’t get half a dime from someone else’s German product.
What is the relationship between countries? Historical and traditional friendship? Deep feelings of culture and history between the two countries? etc. These are almost all pretentious rhetoric, but they cannot be truly believed. The close exchanges and cooperation between China and Germany at the beginning of the 20th century, which are far apart, were based on strategic needs and national interests. The so-called "emotional factors" can basically be eliminated. Let’s start with the Qing Dynasty. Germany was unified relatively late, and only caught up with the "last train" in the carving up of colonies. The Second German Empire, like pulling teeth from a tiger's mouth, went to great lengths to establish a few scattered and disconnected colonies in Africa. It also frightened the Qing Dynasty and seized Jiaozhou Bay. Starting in 1898, it launched a 17-year war in Qingdao. colonial rule.
Germany, as a new colonial power, strives to build Qingdao, the most respectable and prosperous city (which is like a paradise compared to those in Africa), into a "model colony". Those who have lowered their budgets have built railways, planned municipal administration, improved sanitation, opened mines and factories, built modern ports, etc. Especially in terms of municipal infrastructure construction, they are consistent with German local standards.
To this day, many Chinese people still talk about Qingdao’s German-style bungalows, its durable municipal infrastructure, and especially its sewage system. As soon as the rainy season comes in the north, they start to talk about foreigners. It surpassed our level in the 21st century more than a hundred years ago...? How come this thinking is so similar to that of our neighbor India? Brother Asan has fond memories of the colonial history of his British father. Even leaders have repeatedly expressed their sincere gratitude to Britain for its contribution to India's education and industrial modernization. This is understandable, after all, India still insists on using the railway facilities built during the British colonial era more than 150 years ago.
In fact, regarding the sewer system, Qingdao officials have specifically released survey data. Of the 2,900 kilometers of sewers in Qingdao, only 3% are made in Germany.
Anyone with some brains can also figure out that with the trend of real estate revitalizing the urban economy, the area of ??Qingdao’s urban area today is much larger than that of a hundred years ago, and the expansion of the sewer system is inevitable.
Moreover, the design ideas of the German colonists at that time, the so-called "separation of water and sewage", only considered their own ethnic group. They only ensured the cleanliness of the areas where Germans gathered, but allowed the discharge of sewage. Going to a Chinese residential area...isn't it the kind that is spread on the Internet? I have been busy for more than ten years, building bridges, paving roads, and building sewers for the people of Qingdao. Then I was defeated in the first battle. I waved my sleeves and said nothing. What I didn’t take away? The Holy Virgin’s White Lotus. In chronological order, the German army in the Eight-Nation Alliance in the first year of the 20th century was at the forefront with a high profile, and the commander-in-chief of the coalition was the German Waldersee. Not to mention the barbaric and ferocious behavior of the German army, they also joined forces with France and sent troops to Niangziguan with the intention of attacking Shanxi and pursuing Cixi. Fortunately, Liu Guangcai stopped it at the cost of more than 3,000 casualties, otherwise Lafayette and his family would have been kidnapped by Vadersi and his French friends.
During this period, one of the foreigners killed was a German baron. The Baroness was very powerful and not easy to mess with. She put the blame on Cixi's head and wanted to use Cixi's head as a condition for peace, otherwise the city of Beijing would be burned down.
As a result, a man of the hour, Sai Jinhua, appeared, established a relationship with Waldersee, and built a Klinde monument on Dongdan North Street, which was regarded as settling the matter? After settling the matter, she got the reputation of "Empress Protecting the Country". It can be seen that whether it is the relationship between major powers or the daily trivial matters of ordinary people, the form of "finding acquaintances" in private is consistent.
The Klinde Monument Archway is now called the "Peace Defense Archway" (picture below).
The Republic of China was also the era when some deeds advocated by German fans began to emerge.
For example, Hitler lived on the streets of Vienna in his early years and was rescued by a Chinese couple. Later, he became prosperous and looked everywhere for repayment, but he couldn't find it, so he had to provide China with a lot of aid to support our country's war of resistance... ..
It can be said with certainty that the story of being rescued and wanting to repay the favor is a complete fabrication of wishful thinking. This is obviously a formula used in our classical Chinese chapter novels, scripts and stories of repayment of gratitude. There are many of them in "Three Words and Two Patterns" and "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio".
There are several authoritative books, such as "Mein Kampf" written by Hitler's dictation and written by his good comrade-in-arms Rudolf Hess; they also cited a large number of first-hand materials and interviewed many people who experienced it. The book "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" did not mention this matter, and there was not even any similar clues that could be associated with it.
As for Hitler’s strong impression of China and the Chinese people, please refer to the following passage. If a black person and a Chinese person learn German and speak German for the rest of their lives, then they are considered to have been Germanized and can then The idea of ??gaining the right to vote was unimaginable.
?"Mein Kampf"
The picture below shows the English version of "Mein Kampf" (the English version is translated from German, and the Chinese version is translated from English. There are some deletions, but it is still comparable to the English version. All)
Have you ever felt Hitler’s full malice towards the Chinese and black people?
Liu Chongjie, the Chinese minister stationed in Germany from 1934 to 1935, also protested against Hitler for scorning the Chinese in "Mein Kampf". The German government just responded casually by saying: "It will be deleted when it is reprinted." , and then, is it still the same?
There are also rumors that Hitler paid all the expenses for the Chinese delegation in the 1936 Olympic Games.
In fact, the expenses of the Chinese delegation to the Berlin Olympics were made up of government finance and private donations, and had nothing to do with Hitler.
This made the Nationalist Government extremely embarrassed. The Nationalist Government at that time was really not so miserable that it could not even afford the athletes’ travel expenses. In addition, it was not sponsored by Zhang Xueliang. The 8,000 yuan donated by Zhang Shaoshuai was given to the last Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1932. At that time, China had just experienced the "September 18th Incident" and the Songhu Anti-Japanese War (January 28-March 3, 1932), so I really couldn't care less.
Moreover, long before the Nazis came to power, during the Weimar Republic era, the trade between the Chinese National Government and Germany was already booming. Note, it's "trade" not "aid".
The peak of Sino-German cooperation was from 1928 to 1938.
The reason is that historically, Germany, as a European army power, has always been the object of learning and imitation by Asian countries. For example, the army established during the Meiji Restoration in Japan almost copied the entire set of Prussian Army military ideas. , construction system and standard code of conduct;
The main learning object of the Qing Dynasty was also Germany. For example, the deep "friendship" between Li Hongzhang and Bismarck, etc., were all formed in arms transactions. The new armies established in the late Qing Dynasty all bore a deep German imprint.
In addition, due to Germany's defeat in World War I, it lost its concessions and colonies in China. This makes Sino-German cooperation easier and free from historical baggage.
As I said at the beginning of the article, it is based on strategic needs and national interests, and emotional factors can basically be eliminated.
At this time, what Germany wants from China is the rare strategic metal tungsten ore. They are all key materials for manufacturing tungsten alloy steel and necessary for the production of guns. In addition, China's bristle and tung oil are also in great demand in Germany.
Yes, it is bristles. This is definitely a very important strategic material. Think about it, any of the combat platforms and combat weapons during the mechanized war period can be used directly without painting; in addition, It also has an important use in cleaning gunpowder residue in the barrel of large-caliber artillery. Through cooperation, China has received German military, industrial, and technological "assistance".
Actually, the word "aid" is not appropriate. These technologies and arms were purchased at prices higher than the international market price, or were purchased by barter, and the military consultants were also carried in eight sedan chairs. Hire with high salary. We don’t even have a bolt. We got it for free from Germany, so why are we always described as “aid” based on wishful thinking?
Moreover, according to historical records at that time, the industrial products exported by Germany to China, especially military products, were often second-class products or even "defective products" eliminated by quality inspection. For this reason, representatives of the Nationalist Government We also negotiated with relevant German authorities many times.
In the mid-1930s, Germany and Japan began to hook up. In order to show support for Japan's "Greater East Asia" plan, Germany began to gradually alienate China. Under the pressure of Japan, it once After receiving the payment, the goods were refused delivery. By 1938, almost all the German advisory groups had withdrawn to Germany. Falkenhausen, Chiang Kai-shek's military adviser, refused to accept any job after returning to China. Under the surveillance and threat of the Gestapo, he still insisted on promoting the Chinese War of Resistance. It was not until Germany ordered all reservists to return to active service that he rejoined the German army.
Fackenhausen is our true friend of China. Unfortunately, people on the Internet now always think that a fanatical racist? Hitler is the great benefactor of China’s anti-Japanese war...
Objectively speaking, the scale of the German armorers of the national army is very limited, and the main force was basically lost in the Battle of Songhu and the Battle of Nanjing... In the long war of resistance, it did not play a particularly big role. , far less than the support from the United States.
Generally speaking, before and after World War II, Germany’s diplomatic thinking was very pragmatic: its alliance with Japan was to contain the Soviet Union; and its aid to China was to exchange for war resources.... So China and Germany became a trade As a military partner, don’t think too much about other things.
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, relations between countries are an exchange of interests. There has never been a country in the international community that supports other countries without purpose.