Ganymede History

Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 In 1962 another critical situation occured between both Blocks. Both sides fought for control over an Island in the Caribbean Sea named Cuba. In the past Cuba was ruled by the dictator Fulgencio Batista who was supported by the US. Yet in 1959 a small guerilla group lead by Fidel Castro managed to overthrow him. Batista fled into exile and Castro became the new ruler of Cuba. Castro began to nationalize farmland and industry and expropriated US property assets. Many Cubans started leaving the country, often towards the US. Batista had been an ally of the USA and Castro tried as well to establish a relationship with the USA. The US remained skeptical thought because of Castros proximity to the communists. The US refused to send economic aid and instead supported the Cuban opposition and also terrorist groups within the country who committed attacks and sabotage acts. There were assassination attempts on the life of Castro and also a secret plan...

Germany: Construction of the Berlin Wall 1962 During the 50s and early 60s the situation in Eastern Germany didn't improve. People kept leaving the state because they were unhappy about the conditions and weren't allowed to change anything or even utter criticism. This "exodus" was a huge problem for Eastern Germany because especially its well educated and young population kept leaving which further damaged their economy. Western Germany was about to bring Eastern Germany "to its knees" simply by existing and by being more attractive. Between 1945 and 1961 around 3,5 million people fled from the Soviet occupation zone/the GDR towards the West. This diagram shows the population loss of East Germany. (Left: "Citizens in millions". Vertical text: "construction of the Wall") It was an existential crisis for East Germany, the years 1959–1961 were even worse than those of 1952/1953 (when ultimately protests by discontent workers broke...

Germany: Spiegel Affair and Eichmann Trial In 1962 the Spiegel affair happened. The German magazine "Der Spiegel" published an article about a NATO exercise under the name  "Bedingt abwehrbereit" ("Partially Ready to Defend"). The article mentioned details about the performance of the Western German army and the assessment of a NATO commander that found the West German forces to be only partially ready to defend the country. This was a very big issue because if the Bundeswehr wasn't able to defend Western Germany against the Warsaw Pact with conventional means then this meant that nuclear weapons would be necessary in the case of an attack. Or in other words, the Bundeswehr wasn't an efficient deterrent against a conventional attack. Further, if they weren't a serious deterrent then the risk for war would increase because there'd be an "opportunity" for the Warsaw Pact. Western Germanys minister of defence Franz Jose...

 German society of the 1950s The 50s were a particularly repressive time in western Germany. The murderous Nazi oppression had stopped but in many ways the Western German society was keeping groups of people down. Most people were very conservative, in some regards more than in other countries of that time. Being conservative means attempting to "conserve" traditions of the past. Yet at the same time German people tried being very different to the NS society. One example were sex morals. The Nazis were very "open" and unrestricted about this. They promoted nudeness in movies for example. Their propaganda movies particularly showed "perfect" nude bodies of for example athletes. Leni Riefenstahl produced some of those movies . Being "healthy", having a "strong" body was something you were supposed to have and you were supposed to be proud of it. Of course this was just one piece of Nazi ideology that also killed million...

Germany 1949 until 1953 When the Western German state, the Federal Republic of Germany, was founded in 1949, its government was eager to obtain more sovereignty and autonomy. The occupational forces still controlled many important areas of the state. The new chancellor of western Germany, Konrad Adenauer , slowly tried gaining more indepency step by step. This was especially important on an international and diplomatic stage. After the war Germany was a pariah, an outcast, in the eyes of other countries. It just lead a genocidal war against its neighbors, how was there ever going to be a discourse or even a partnership with them? Nobody wanted to have diplomatic relations with Western Germany. This changed only very, very slowly. Establishing relationships with your neighboring states was important but how was it supposed to be done? One way to achieve it was over creating economic partnerships first. One of those projects was the "Montanunion" , a partnership to...

 Germany 1945 until 1949 In the last days of WWII many Germans became aware that despite the Nazi propaganda there was no way to achieve a victory or even a truce anymore. The situation was hopeless. Many German civilians and military personnel resorted to "saving their own hide" in the time to come. Many of them were burning anything that was connecting them to the Nazi regime. Flags, uniforms and especially membership books of the Nazi Party NSDAP were destroyed. Many people claimed they haven't actually been a Nazi, they just entered the Nazi party to advance their career or they have been forced to enter or they simply didn't know what was going on.  At the end of the war the Nazis suddenly "vanished". Nobody was going to admit anymore that he was a Nazi. There was the "zero hour myth" that said that at the moment of unconditional surrender there were no Nazis anymore and it was like a "fresh start" for the german societ...