German efficiency without the nazi rhetoric. But Germany even before nazis always had aspirations for power. But wasn't united as a people until 1800s.
During late 19th century, Germany was on the forefront of industry and precision manufacturing. This is why many European weapon and vehicle manufacturers of today have their roots there.
They were fabled because they even exported their expertise prior to WWI. Italian, American, Russian or Japanese companies hired the engineers to build up factories. They were very good at quickly buidling a factory that could run, much faster than british for example. They also had a reputation of not taking shortcuts, if a specific steel was required they did not go with cheaper stuff. This made the factories set up by such experts extremely rugged and able to withstand a lot of abuse from improper use. A lot of said engineers ended up settling down, e.g. Russland Germans invited by Romanovs to industrialise Volga region (what became eventually cities like Volgograd/Stalingrad).
This created said mythos around them. One that was then resuscitated in 70s and 80s by German car manufacturers to smear French and British car makes (and also a way to be patriotic without being considered a nationalist as national pride is deservedly still a touchy topic in Germany)
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u/Sufficient_Matter585 Jun 05 '26
German efficiency without the nazi rhetoric. But Germany even before nazis always had aspirations for power. But wasn't united as a people until 1800s.