I think the reality of this is a little more nuanced. By virtue of geography (it's an island) Britain was the last place Germany were able to overrun. This bought time for what remained of the European forces to gather and reorganise, and provided a staging point for further counter-attacks.
The fact is, that Britain has never been invaded, not in modern times anyway, and outside of bombing raids has never known the true humiliation of hearing the foreign powers' jackboot marching down the street.
Just about every other nation in Europe has, and understands the value of the peace that closer union brings about.
>.. but lost the war.
Ultimately being able to claim "they won the war" may have done the UK more harm than good because they were never incentivised to address their deep deep social issues in any kind of a constructive way.
The good that comes out of the brexit fiasco might be that this is an eventual turning point for them.
People forget that Churchill was hated by a lot of people - my father (who was in the RAF in WW2) utterly loathed him.
You can imagine that if Germany made better use of individual European countries, made some high-profile infrastructure and regulatory improvements in the countries that it occupied (as the EU does now), and dramatically toned down the anti-Pole and anti-Jew activities- it would have been a lot more successful in its aims. Heck, mass conversions to Christianity of the Jewish population would probably have been successful, and been supported by many Christians worldwide, and any staunch Jewish holdouts who refused given the opportunity to fight against the British and create and mass-migrate to Israel as a German sub-territory.
Germany could have created a new European identity, and sought new land and direct expansion of European populations into the Middle East and Africa against easier opponents, instead of against Russia.
Eventually it would have just outgrown and outlasted Britain and Russia. Britain as a democracy would have eventually rotated in a set of politicians willing to make peace.
I say all this as the descendent of a Polish Jew :-)
Who would say is the main power?
It's definitely a significant power but I don't see how you could argue that it's "clearly" the main continental power.
However it's probably the regional power with the highest nuisance potential for the EU (alongside Turkey).
But if you think Germany can actually tell any country on how to vote you need a European history lesson.
This whole thing about fitting up Germany to be the puppet master is just ignorance borne of envy for their social model, industrial output and success on the international export market.
EU decision making for big issues:
1. Leaders of France and Germany meet to draw out a plan.
2. They negotiate with few other big countries to form a block. Valuable horse-trading happens here.
3. The European Council meets and small countries realize that the table is already made for them. They are never part of the process from the start. They are allowed to do some tweaks but that's it.
So...the main power in Europe is not Germany, it's 'France and Germany'. Important distinction.
Germany is one of several large powers in the EU, but small countries have considerable influence, and can and do block decisions/legislation all the time. That's why there is a push to end the national vetos on various issues.
Seriously, the idea that the EU, where the smallest country has a veto over virtually everything, and where Germany is the largest of several large democratic powers, and where everything that happens is a compromise negotiated carefully while balancing dozens of competing interests, is in _any_ way related to "what Germany wanted in WWII" is deeply offensive.
And yet I've encountered it again and again, online and in person. This type of idiotic idea, unbound by the reality of what the EU is and does, and enabled and encouraged by opportunistic press and politicians, is exactly what brought us Brexit.
I was not arguing that and I specially said so in the beginning. Brits are just sore because they won the war but lost the peace (relative to Germany).
Small countries have veto power, but using veto always creates a crisis. That's not proper way to do decisions, but Germany forces it to others.
The inability to be part of the decision process from the beginning is real problem. You either vote to spoil everything or get small confessions, but you are never part of the inner circle.
I also don't accept the idea that others don't have a place at the table for discussions during the drafting phases. These are often run by the EC where smaller countries are represented.
However, the asymmetry of EU members is also really extreme. Germany has 160 times as many inhabitants as Malta. Germany, the UK, France and Italy already make up 54% of EU population.[1]
With the UK out, the four biggest, Germany, France, Italy and Spain will be at more than 57%. So obviously there is a really difficult balancing act here.
But really, please point to any development in the last 5 years or so that functioned according to the "Germany and France decide and the EU goes in that direction". Germany and France wanted a Tobin Tax and couldn't get it, Germany wanted refugees to be distributed and couldn't get it, Germany and France wanted stricter Tax rules in the EU and didn't get it. They wanted to end unanimty on Tax rules and it looks like they are not getting that either.
[1] If you think back to the start of the EU, among the 6 founding members Germany and France represented more than 2/3rds of the population. So the top four countries together don't have nearly as much weight as France/Germany had in the beginning. I guess this is the main reason that the France-Germany axis is not as prominent as it once was.
Any power Germany had, has, or will have, is fragile, not only because we are quite exposed geographically, but also because the idea of "Germany" was always so dynamic. A fragile power is no power. You may argue with Taleb that this makes the country antifragile, but personally I find it extremely unrealistic for Germany to hold any status other than "economic" power for an extended period of time. It wasn't achieved in over 1250 years since Charles the Great, and not for lack of trying.
Also, this bit made me laugh:
> Germany [...] quite exposed geographically
Yes, squeezed between Poland and Belgium? Or perhaps Czech Republic and the Netherlands? Austria and Denmark? All these scary countries around! I can promise you the Czechs aren't planning any attacks on the exposed Germany just yet :)
děkuju moc! And greetings from germany :)
Czech is a wonderful language by the way. It's sad there is so little interest for your country in Germany.
As for the flag: I doubt it's a such a big deal. It's unpopular in educated circles to some degree but I'm worried quite more about all the people using the Imperial War Flag to demonstrate their disdain for modern democracy.
This is 100% true, and as the number of people who experienced WWII and the holocaust is rapidly declining, the German political elite is on a desperate search for another national identity. I fear that if they are not successful, we will see strong separatist movements in some areas of Germany during the next 10-30 years.
> Yes, squeezed between Poland and Belgium? Or perhaps Czech Republic and the Netherlands? Austria and Denmark? All these scary countries around!
I meant that Germany has almost no natural borders, except the Alps, the Rhine and a tiny amount of coast. I can assure you that this is extremely present in the German mindset, and has been for centuries. It may explain the general "nervousness" of Germans, and is also one of the reasons the refugee crisis had such a significant impact on German politics. It is true that we are surrounded by friends, but the part you find laughable - the small military power of most of our neighboring nations, with the exception of France - is at the same time the main reason Germany has to be nervous. If somebody wanted to invade us, they would just walk over the Netherlands, Poland, the Czech Republic, or Switzerland. I am 31. When I was 2, half of Germany was still de facto occupied by Russia.
See, this is the part I find worrying! :)
Well, there was Cromwell [0] but maybe that's part of the problem ...