My Dear Friend of Democracy,
What would we do if we knew what the future held?
For example, the people of my hometown of Tauberbischofsheim in the south of Germany 100 years ago. In 1925.
At that time, 3,672 people lived there (today almost 10,000).
On the one hand, they lived very differently than we do today. With much less.
Cars did exist, but for most people they were unaffordable. If you invested your entire monthly wage in butter, you would only get 100 pieces of butter. Practically every product was valuable in the sense that you would think carefully about whether to buy it.
On the other hand, life was not much different than it is today. There were numerous shops. People were concerned about prices. Social life in sports and cultural clubs was central.
And politically?
Those times were fairly stable. Paul Hindenburg was elected president of the German Reich that year (but not if the people of Tauberbischofsheim had had their way, as they voted 1,499 times for Wilhelm Marx of the Centre Party, while Hindenburg only received 368 votes). And in the state elections in Baden, the Centre Party was voted for the most. The newly founded NSDAP of Adolf Hitler only received 29 votes in Tauberbischofsheim.
Eight years later, this party ended democracy in Germany.
What would the people of my hometown have done if they had known what was going to happen?
See you in Democracy,
Johannes