672
this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2025
672 points (98.8% liked)
The Onion
6386 readers
577 users here now
The Onion
A place to share and discuss stories from The Onion, Clickhole, and other satire.
Great Satire Writing:
- The Onion
- Clickhole
- McSweeney's
- Reductress
- The Chaser
- The Hard Times
- The Needling
- Tattletale Times
- The Beaverton
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
But the reason Germany was so full of those scientists is because Germany lacked access to good coal seams and to petroleum reserves and also its massive dye industry from the 1800s. In a similar fashion, Germany learned to use metals like magnesium because they were abundant while pure iron was not
Fun fact: in both world wars, Germany was absolutely dependent upon Swedish iron ore to produce high-quality steel. In WWI, it was only the High Seas Fleet of battleships and battlecruisers that prevented the Royal Navy from sailing into the Baltic and choking off this supply and ending the war (an under-appreciated reason for Germany building all those capital ships in the first place while being generally unwilling to risk losing them all in a major fleet engagement). In WWII, it was Hitler's quick occupation of Norway and the Luftwaffe that preserved the supply of Swedish ore.
Germany was also critically dependent upon Swedish ball-bearings, but at least Sweden sold those to both sides.
That may have been part of it, but another part is that there was relative peace and stability for about a century, many government reforms that modernized the country, and the industrial revolution making Germany into a world power. Also, AFAIK, iron was relatively abundant in the Ruhr valley, along with coal, which is why it became the industrial centre for the country.