Imagine, dear reader, that you had the fabulous and absurd possibility of revising certain historical events …
You probably know the movies „Back to the Future I-III“ with Michael J. Fox …? Something like that. Maybe a little bit more comfortable, without you having to get up and travel back in time, by remote control if you like.
So you sit there, think, and let a veritable flood of sense and nonsense pass you by, at home on your flatscreen with popcorn and beer, or whatever you feel like. Deeply relaxed. First …
You see pictures there, pure world history, and hear what is being said. And you hold this magic remote control in your hands. It may be bulky, but it is equipped with brightly coloured buttons.
Anyway, with this remote control you can now zap back as you like, select explicitly and press „delete“. With another menu function, you would even be able to choose between several scenarios that the system would automatically present to you, probably measured by the options available at the time of the event or at least conceivable sequences.
And then … yes, then they rush past you, those opportunities to readjust the history and thus the present.
They feel tense, history is making its way through their eyes into their innermost being.
There’s the universe, the BIG BANG. Click? You rascal! You would really made it too easy for yourself with this kind of decision, even if we could have done without all the subsequent nonsense. So let’s continue with the programme …
Next, you – quite humbly – let all the great historical events pass by idly, although your fingers are itching mightily.
Wouldn’t dinosaurs be cute nowadays? There’s that comet … hm … you could stop it … but presumably there wouldn’t be any humans then, if voracious raptors and T-Rex remained the crowning glory of creation, you conclude.
So you let the History continue and the itch in your fingers increases.
Right now, you admit it, since Jesus could be absolved thanks to you, by a simple keystroke … Imagine … no Christian Religion, no churches, no Inquisition, no religion wars …
Thanks to you, Genghis Khan would not only live to be around 60, but a whopping 75 years, which would have given him the opportunity to occupy all of Europe. No Oktoberfest? Impossible!
Or – not bad either – just now, when with a teeny tiny click you could have first Amerigo Vespucci and then Christopher Columbus each end up as fertilised eggs in miscarriages.
But no, you focus on more recent events.
Ah, the entry of the British into the war in WW1 … you could prevent it …. With the probably certain consequence of a German victory in continental Europe, a quick one against the Russians, with which a Kerensky revolution could hardly have found fertile ground … And without that there would have been no Bolshevik Great October Revolution, no Soviet Union … There would probably have been a gradual democratisation of Europe; National Socialism would never have been able to gain a foothold, which would also have meant that there would have been no Second World War, no GDR, no Cold War … Perhaps no nuclear weapons? Pacifism would have been superfluous… Hell, there would have been no Shoa either, and thus no Israel, no Yom-Ki-Pur.
No, before you get dizzy, focus on more modest events whose impact you can still clearly feel.
Birth of the Greens? You suspect darkly – while Anna-Lena Baerbock’s stammering and Ricarda Lang’s demand for a ban on advertising certain snacks (she herself is obviously rather partial to sugar) flash through your brain – a big mistake, but never mind! You zap on.
A policeman’s truncheon whizzes past Joschka Fischer’s head by a hair’s breadth. You resist the urge to let the bat match him. And on.
Ronald Reagan becomes president … Hm. Assassination. Thanks to your remote control, the ambulance is delayed. Oops. Reagan survives anyway. You pussy! But on with the programme. The Iran-Contra affair is also too amusing …
Kohl becomes chancellor. Brezhnev dies. You don’t care about either. Even the fall of the Wall in 1990. But what doesn’t leave you cold?
Ah. In 1990, the GDR party DA (Demokratischer Aufbruch) joined the West German CDU. With a milk-faced Angela Merkel. Your thumb twitches. You are not a faithless do-gooder, not a Germany-hater, not a reality-denier, you see how Germany, and with it Europe, is changing with Merkel in gloomy lulling, but you would have the choice, could prevent Merkel’s rise. Once again you resist the temptation. More exciting things await. Hard to believe, isn’t it?
Wiesbaden 2007, „Petersburg Dialogue“, 14 October anno Domini, half past twelve at night. Putin wakes up in a cold sweat. He is deeply in love. He has realised: I love Angela Merkel. That very night he sneaks into her hotel. And doesn’t leave her room before the first cockcrow.
Then, in February 2014, a secret meeting in Kiev. While John McCain has been waiting in vain and ignored as if isolated for hours to be able to give the new head of government Yatsenyuk direction, with a few billion dollars in his luggage and geopolitical demands, the latter – thanks to your magic remote control – has just signed a secret agreement with Merkel and Putin. The two coo in love, looking forward to the future three-state alliance. With Germany’s economic and innovative strength, Russia’s mineral resources and Ukraine’s exposed position, a gigantic source of power for the global economy is emerging. Putin is calling off the occupation of Crimea, he has orange roses distributed to people all over Kiev, the Donbas separatists are also being called off, the new three-state alliance is proving to be highly attractive and no Ukrainian wants the EU or NATO any more. The gross domestic product of both countries will quadruple by 2023, that of Germany will double again. There is no war, only a rosy future.
Shock waves are going through the rest of the world. All attempts by the US and the EU, on the other hand, especially the British, to blow up the alliance fail.
George Friedman’s horror scenario, a Russian-German alliance, has come true thanks to your counter-historical remote control.
You’re smiling. Lucky you.“
Im Mahlstrom 