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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023

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In Germany, not only did Adenauer's chancellorship prevent the worst excesses of postwar socialism, but a tax code littered with exemptions for family businesses and agricultural land (in many cases drafted by aristocrats involved with the CDU) allowed West German aristocrats to keep the overwhelming majority of their land.

I definitely agree that British rich didn't uniformly have it better than their German counterparts. From Atlee up until Thatcher, Britain was the land of one for you and nineteen for me, and Germany seems to have more billionaires. A large fraction of their wealth does seem to post-date the war though.

On second thought, I think I would weight more heavily the economic leveling effect of the Avro Lancaster. The German rich seem to have done much better than the British rich since the war.

The Weimar government's failure to deal with the status of the aristocracy (even the Fürstenenteignung never happened, so the West German princely houses were among the only only deposed monarchs in history to be able to keep much of their crown property) further bolstered the aristocrats.

Famously, it cause problems for Hitler too.