Greece: Made in Germany

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  • TrueMacedonian
    Banned
    • Jan 2009
    • 3823

    Greece: Made in Germany



    The new state did not attach itself to its immediate past, as it had been preserved in the popular memory, but rather adapted itself to the popular image of the ancient Greek past already created in the West. Otto's father, King Ludwig I of Bavaria, was obsessed with ancient Greece and brought up his children with the aspiration that one day one of them would reign over this glorious land(1).

    The German obsession with the ancient Hellene city-states all began in the 18th century and began to trickle through socialite circles and educational systems. Eventually this new cult of personality would take affect in the new land mass that would become known as Greece in 1821. In other words the Germans in effect created modern Greece and the modern Greeks on Romantic German aryanist philology(2). It's the same Aryanism that Martin Bernal questioned in 1987 in which public passions were aroused by modern Greeks and scholars from around the world(3).

    Writer Nikos Dimou states the following in a recent NY Times interview;

    “It’s the fault of a German,” Mr. Dimou said about Greek pride in this cause. He was referring to Johann Winckelmann, the 18th-century German art historian whose vision of an ancient Greece “populated by beautiful, tall, blond, wise people, representing perfection,” as Mr. Dimou put it, was in a sense imposed on the country to shape modern Greek identity.(4)

    He also goes on to say;

    “We used to speak Albanian and call ourselves Romans, but then Winckelmann, Goethe, Victor Hugo, Delacroix, they all told us, ‘No, you are Hellenes, direct descendants of Plato and Socrates,’ and that did it. If a small, poor nation has such a burden put on its shoulders, it will never recover.”(5)

    What eventually led to the wide-spread phenomenon of these Aryanist values was through the Science of Antiquity a school where the study of classical civilization forged the discipline of the fictional Hellenic model. Scholar Stathis Gourgouris wrote the following in his book Dream Nation;

    In practical terms, however, the historical absurdity of declaring Hellenic civilization the expression of a culture uncontaminated by foreign elements can be explained by a simple fact that usually tends to be disregarded-namely, that Hellenic civilization as we know itwas in fact the invention of the "Science of Antiquity", of classics. As such it could have been (and was) endowed with whatever signification the discipline found useful.(6)

    With western help modern Greece won its independence and was put under Bavarian monarchical rule under the newly crowned King Of Greece, King Otto.

    If we go back in time to a place called Athens before it was made into the new German made kingdom what would we find hanging around the ruins? According to Edmond About close to the mid-nineteenth century "Athens, twenty five years ago, was only an Albanian village" and that "Athens has been rapidly peopled with men of all kinds of nations". He also goes on to say; "The Turkish village which formerly clustered round the base of the acropolis has not disappeared; it forms a whole quarter of the town....an immense majority of the population of this quarter is composed of Albanians.(7)

    Eventually the new Bavarian monarchy would remedy this situation in not just Athens but all of German made modern Greece. The Albanians of Athens and whatever else the other rabble of races were did not fit the mold of what Wincklemann's fantasy manifested in Germany and Western Europe. In 1834, it was decided to make Athens the new capital of the Kingdom of Otto's Greece. A German architect, Schaubert, was employed to create wide streets, the squares the boulevards: and so Athens, which in 1834 was a village of 5000 inhabitants had become in 1936 a city of over four hundred and fifty thousand(8). In essence we see that Germans literally created Modern Greece from the ground up. But Athens was only one area. What about Sparta?
    According to our source, Edmond About, "New Sparta is a creation of King Otto, who has formed the useless project of rescusitating all the great names of Greece."(9) Of course Sparta was at one time not only an Albanian stronghold but a major settlement for the Slavic tribes that entered the balkans in the 6th century AD. Traveller Peter Edmund Laurent made his way through SlavoSparta before the war for independence broke out. He said; "From their manners, their features, and the names of many of the neighboring places, I should be tempted to regard them as proceeding from Sclavonian blood:many travellers pretend, however, to have discovered in these barbarous hordes traces of a Spartan origin.(10).
    We can see why King Otto wanted to create New Sparta. Because Slavo-Sparta did not fit the Aryan German Hellenic ideal with all its Slavic name places and uncouth manners.

    But re-creating a dead ancient civilization from the ground up was not the only task King Otto had in mind. The Bavarian masters had the church of Greece declared independent from the ecumenical church of Constantinople. The newly found church of Greece was from the beginning a prisoner of the autocratic, Bavarian ruled Greek state(11).

    According to historian William St.Claire German Made Greece "was essentially a Bavarian colony. (That Greece Might Still Be Free)

    ....to be continued

    1-Discourses of Collective Identity in Central and Southeast Europe (1770-1945) Volume II, page 308, written by Mary Kitroeff, edited by Balazs Trencsenyi and Michael Kopecek

    2 & 3-Cultural Intimacy: Social poetics in the nation-state, pages 106-07, by Michael Herzfeld

    4 & 5- Elgin Marble Argument in a New Light By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN Published: June 23, 2009 NY Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/ar...=2&sq=Albanian Marbles&st=cse&scp=1

    6- Dream Nation, page 134, by Stathis Gourgouris

    7- Greece and the Greeks of today, pages 32 and 160, by Edmond About

    8- In the Steps of St.Paul, page 304, by H.V. Morton

    9- Greece and the Greeks of today, pages 21-22, by Edmond About

    10- Recollections of a Classical tour, page 182, by Peter Edmund Laurent

    11- Salonica Terminus, page 43, by Fred A. Reed
  • Soldier of Macedon
    Senior Member
    • Sep 2008
    • 13675

    #2
    Good stuff TM, and great title for the thread, lol.
    In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

    Comment

    • TrueMacedonian
      Banned
      • Jan 2009
      • 3823

      #3
      Thanks SoM. The title had me laughing for quite a bit last night

      Comment

      • George S.
        Senior Member
        • Aug 2009
        • 10116

        #4
        TM thank you for reminding us the flag & words say it all that Greece is a fake & that it was made in germany.That's something that can't be denied it's in the books the germans
        printed.They tried to twist their findings so that the greeks fitted that stereotype.Of course that was all wrong & greece is one big FAKE.Evidence shows how greece simply denies everything because its simple
        & easy.
        Last edited by George S.; 09-24-2009, 02:29 PM. Reason: spell
        "Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
        GOTSE DELCEV

        Comment

        • JasonBoris
          Banned
          • Sep 2009
          • 28

          #5
          Israel was created after the war.
          Does that mean that Jews were a creation?

          Comment

          • El Bre
            Member
            • Sep 2008
            • 713

            #6
            No, but then again, noone had to reach back into history in order to devise an identity for them.

            Besides, I don't remember boatloads of Greek refugees being denied at every port of call either.
            Last edited by El Bre; 09-25-2009, 08:02 AM.

            Comment

            • TrueMacedonian
              Banned
              • Jan 2009
              • 3823

              #7
              Originally posted by JasonBoris View Post
              Israel was created after the war.
              Does that mean that Jews were a creation?
              No. Being Jewish is a religion first and foremost. Just like christian. Isareli however was something missing in that part of the world for many many centuries. However Palestine and Palestinians weren't missing. Unfortunately today some Zionists claim to be related to some Israelites 4000 years ago and have bulldozed houses down and destroyed countless lives (remind you of some people we know?). But anyways this topic is not about Jews or Palestines or their differences. This is about German Made modern "greece" and let's stay on topic.

              Comment

              • Daskalot
                Senior Member
                • Sep 2008
                • 4345

                #8
                Originally posted by TrueMacedonian View Post
                No. Being Jewish is a religion first and foremost. Just like christian. Isareli however was something missing in that part of the world for many many centuries. However Palestine and Palestinians weren't missing. Unfortunately today some Zionists claim to be related to some Israelites 4000 years ago and have bulldozed houses down and destroyed countless lives (remind you of some people we know?). But anyways this topic is not about Jews or Palestines or their differences. This is about German Made modern "greece" and let's stay on topic.
                Jason you heard the man, stay on topic.
                Macedonian Truth Organisation

                Comment

                • Bratot
                  Senior Member
                  • Sep 2008
                  • 2855

                  #9
                  Македонска нација“ не е орган на политичка партија, друштво, или организација, туку е широка национална трибуна, во која може да соработува секој оној Македонец и Македонка, кој сака да работи за доброто и среќата на својата нација. На македонската национална кауза може да и служи секој чесен Македонец без разлика на неговите филозофски погледи, идеолошки убедувања или партиска припадност.


                  (Неизмерна благодарност до мојот пријател Ване кој несебично придонесува во презентирањето на историската вистина)


                  The purpose of the media is not to make you to think that the name must be changed, but to get you into debate - what name would suit us! - Bratot

                  Comment

                  • TrueMacedonian
                    Banned
                    • Jan 2009
                    • 3823

                    #10
                    Nice job.

                    Comment

                    • lavce pelagonski
                      Senior Member
                      • Nov 2009
                      • 1993

                      #11
                      Well done, how will the Greeks find an excuse for this.
                      Стравот на Атина од овој Македонец одел до таму што го нарекле „Страшниот Чакаларов“ „гркоубиец“ и „крвожеден комитаџија“.

                      „Ако знам дека тука тече една капка грчка крв, јас сега би ја отсекол целата рака и би ја фрлил в море.“ Васил Чакаларов

                      Comment

                      • Carlin
                        Senior Member
                        • Dec 2011
                        • 3332

                        #12
                        How Philip the Greek was British all along

                        Despite all the debate before his marriage, the Duke of Edinburgh’s link to Queen Victoria meant he was a British subject

                        URL:
                        Despite all the debate before his marriage, the Duke of Edinburgh’s link to Queen Victoria meant he was a British subject


                        To those unwilling to analyse the dynastic blood that coursed through his veins, the duke was always Phil the Greek, though there was probably not one corpuscle of Hellenic origin. Danish, definitely, with Russian and German too. But the only thing tangibly Greek when he was exiled from Corfu in an orange box aged 18 months, was the worthless title he took with him of Prince Philip of Greece.

                        Despite the brouhaha that forced him to seek British naturalisation in order to marry, it would emerge 25 years later that he was, indeed, British all along. Not only that, but he was infinitely more “royal” than his bride, being descended from royalty on both sides.

                        Such was the intermarrying of royal families in Europe, it took time to unravel Philip’s complex origins to the satisfaction of all.

                        Philip’s father, Prince Andrew of Greece, was the fourth son of George I of the Hellenes, formerly Prince Wilhelm of Denmark, who was elected king of Greece following a protocol signed in 1863 by England, France and Russia, and who was to die from an assassin’s bullet.

                        Andrew’s brother, King Constantine I, was deposed by a military junta following the Greeks’ heavy defeat by the Turks in the war of Asia Minor in 1922. Andrew was charged with treason, imprisoned, and sentenced to death before fleeing with his family to live in much reduced circumstances in Paris.

                        Philip harboured not one jot of emotional attachment to the country of which he was prince. “I certainly never felt nostalgic about Greece. A grandfather assassinated and a father condemned to death does not endear me to the perpetrators,” he said.

                        His Danish dynastic name was Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg, and his father was also descended from Russian emperors.

                        His mother, Princess Alice, who was profoundly deaf and later became a Greek orthodox nun, was the daughter of Prince Louis of Battenberg who, in 1917, renounced his German titles to take the anglicised surname of Mountbatten and was created the first Marquess of Milford Haven.

                        His maternal grandmother, Princess Victoria of Hesse, was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria.

                        His parents’ marriage would eventually break down, with his father moving to Monte Carlo and becoming a melancholy figure who died in 1944. His four sisters, all much older and more like aunts to him, married Germans.

                        Philip’s nationality remained ambiguous – and was the subject of fervent political debate – in the run-up to his marriage. But eventually, in 1972, some 25 years after his naturalisation and in the year of his silver wedding anniversary, Lord Dilhorne, the former lord chancellor, replied to an inquiry from Philip’s uncle Lord Mountbatten.

                        It was undeniable, said Dilhorne, that under a 1705 act of parliament, all descendants of the Electress Sophia Hanover (including Philip, through his link to Queen Victoria) were British subjects.

                        So, Phil the Greek, Phil the Dane, or Phil the German, had been British all along.

                        Comment

                        • Amphipolis
                          Banned
                          • Aug 2014
                          • 1328

                          #13
                          Actually, Philip's ancestry is not so complicated or unclear. His father was 50% German, 25% Danish and 25% Russian and his mother was 75% German and 25% Britsh. So Philip's ancestry was not Greek at all. Through his small British ancestry he was actually a third cousin of his wife, Queen Elisabeth.

                          Furthermore, while his father DID have a strong Greek conscience, Philip was practically abandoned and grew up (fatherless and motherless) in a foreign country, raised as British.

                          Comment

                          • sydney
                            Member
                            • Sep 2008
                            • 390

                            #14
                            So he wasn’t related to Leonidas, Philip or Alexander?

                            Comment

                            • Amphipolis
                              Banned
                              • Aug 2014
                              • 1328

                              #15
                              Originally posted by sydney View Post
                              So he wasn’t related to Leonidas, Philip or Alexander?
                              Actually, in case you don't know it,

                              Leonidas had a son, but no grandchildren
                              Alexander had two sons, but no grandchildren either
                              Philip DID have grandchildren, but none of them was survived.

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