Utopia (6): Our unbelievable history

It took me a while til I was prepared to write this part. Of course - they could discuss something different. History divergence is a mere background for my thougths - however I decided to specify the split point of our and their world.

Now I want to know something more about the society I'm suddenly living in. I know that I'm in England, that's clear now. I also know that most of the history is the same like in my world. Everything started to diverge some time between both World Wars. Actually - the second one in this world was completely different from ours.
- "Well," I wasn't sure if I want to ask questions right here and now, "I guess that now I start with that aforementioned merging. :-)"
- "You can," nodded Paul. "However now you're the main attraction - at least for me. But I don't wanna push you now. I guess you don't know what to do anyway."
- "Maybe that's why you might push me into something," proposed I. "Anything, actually."
- "So if you want to tell me about your previous life... anything."
- "Well... I might and I will - I promise. But now I'd rather to know more about this world. I might have a lot of time to tell you about my one later."
- "Uh, so ask something."
- "Ok. I can't decide if I wanna know something from history or something about your society. I found something in Object World, but I had more things to investigate during this day, you know..."
- "Object World?" Paul's voice is full of doubts.
- "Well... that... tool or application..."
- "I know what's Object World," Paul interrupted me. "Just no one calls it like that. Except the tool itself - that's Object World browser, that's right."
- "Ah, I thought..." then I realized that even we don't call our web by names of our web browsers.
- "We call it just Net most of the time," Caren stepped in.
- "Ok, I see," on the other hand I was technical type too, "but I noticed that some objects were considered to be local."
- "Oh, yes, some objects are on your computer - that's true," agreed Caren, "however - they are still part of the network, so we don't distinguish between local and remote objects. Of course, except in cases where it really matters. And this is not the one. ;-)"

- "Ok, so just Net. And now that history part. Because my and your world have very similar time line til the World War I."
- "And where is the difference?"
- "Well, our World War II started in 39 and actually Germany was aggressor again."
- "Germany as aggressor... you said 20 years later?" Caren was obviously surprised. "How that could be possible?"
- "Well... now I don't know why in our world it was possible when it wasn't in yours. ;-) However the allies were quite hard on Germany after the War and they were hardly touched by the Great Crisis..."
- "...Great Depression you mean... 1928?"
- "Well... yes, depression, 1929 to 1933 actually. This was one of the reason why Hitler took power in Germany that time, because his populistic talks just worked in the situation."
- "Hitler?"
- "Yes, Adolf Hitler, one of the most know person in modern history, I guess."
- "Never heard of him," Caren shook her head and Paul did the same.
- "Well," I was struck dumb for a while, "no Hitler here?"
- "No... but tell me how could Germany possibly start another war?" Paul is wondering. "Because here their army was cut to one third if I'm right."
- "Yes, one third," Caren agreed. "At least it was still applied around 1930."
- "Well," now I'm not sure how it was in our world exactly, but... "Germany was actually disarmed and humiliated somehow. It was in very bad shape when it was hit by Depression. But Hitler ran out weapon industry, hence he gave people work - and that was most important for them. Then he started with all that race purity, antisemitism and so - and people followed because they were given the work, maybe some guarantees for living and after all - they really could feel that the situation is caused mostly by allied powers who decided so badly after War."
- "In this world, Germany was revitalized - mostly thanks to Wilson who was able to convince his allies about this. Actually, Wilson was strong advocate of Open society model and he saw that after such a cataclysm event (like WWI unarguably was) there is free space to spread this thoughts."
- "Open society?"
- "Just the name for the society model, nothing extraordinary. But there were more persons believing in Open society in some way in high politics that time - and that could make a difference."
- "Well and... how big is this open society?"
- "Currently? Most of the Europe and North America. That time it was much smaller groups of people. Open society was well established here in Britain and it started to gain some twist in USA. It might count well... few tens of thousands people. Mostly intelligentsia however. Politics, philosophers, academic sphere and so. Also - shortly after War the Open society was not adopted in such a scale - either horizontal or vertical."
- "Scale?" now I'm a little bit off.
- "Well, Reeves wrote his crucial work about importance of communications in Open society later after War," said Caren.
- "Yeah, something like Why is open communication mandatory or so, it was in 1925," added Paul.
- "However - open communication was long run. But many things were fully adopted and many Open society thoughts were fully developed during the War. That to take care of your surrounding is important, that you should care of it, that you should interfere when necessary, that you should concern about things and people around you," explained Caren.

- "I still don't get that Germany thing," Paul looks contemplatively. "If allies were hard on them and they started to arm themselves so much... there was no reaction?"
- "Well," I sights, "modern history of Europe is the history of naivety. They - and I mean mainly UK and France - thought that when they do some compromises Hitler would do nothing extraterritorial."
- "Ah... I don't know how was Hitler... but it looks naive indeed. And stupid. How long took the second War?"
- "World War II? Well... September 1939 to May 1945... September actually if I should count Pacific war. 6 years."
- "Pfu," Paul nodded. "I know nothing about its scale, but it must be much worse then the first one. Longer and with more modern weapons."
- "However... that compromises thing is not everything. UK and France even signed a treaty with Hitler and Mussolini about Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia and Czechoslovakia resigned next day for this land. With UK's and France's blessings."
- "Uff, I hardly know what's Sudetenland... was it big part of the country?"
- "One third I guess?" I'm not sure, but I know I'm not far from the truth.
- "One third of Czechoslovakia?!" Paul can't believe.
- "Oh, sorry. One third of Bohemia. And one third of Slovakia was given to Hungary. I'm not sure if that was the same treaty... however it was around the same time. Not to mention that Munich agreement (called Munich betrayal in Czechoslovakia) was signed after the Austria was annexed to the Reich - I mean Hitler's Germany."
- "That sounds impossible," Caren obviously couldn't believe.
- "Well, tell me," I grinned. "We have it in our school books. During the course of War Germany reached even Moscow. France was occupied... well, three years at least? Heavy battles were also in Africa."
A short moment of silence follows - at least between us three. Because in Baldoria the rush goes on, of course. ;-)
- "However," I started. "After this war the Germany was divided and the western part was revitalized and it was treated as a normal country. That helped I guess. The rest with Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia... that all became part of the Eastern block lead by Soviet Union with Stalin as a leader. Countries were independent officially... but..."

- "Well..." said Caren.
- "Well..." added Paul. "I guess that there are some differences in our histories after all. :-)"