00:13Subtitling by ZDF for funk, 2017
00:46Subtitling by ZDF for funk, 2017
01:00And before they protest, Ian Morris goes even further.
01:04He claims that wars have brought security and prosperity to our world.
01:09Philipp Rimmel
01:24I don't think that's true. It depends on how you think about war.
01:40If you live in times of war, the song rings true. War is good for absolutely nothing.
01:45But if you look at the big picture of history, going back 10,000, 15,000 years,
01:50You realize that wars have also brought about good.
01:55What a theory! Wars, of all things, are supposed to have made the world safer and richer?
02:02It's not just pacifists who have to swallow hard at this.
02:05War as a secret engine of peace? Seriously?
02:11Our history is a depressingly bloody affair.
02:15But Ian Morris claims to have discovered a hidden mechanism behind all the murder and suffering.
02:22A mechanism that ensures war abolishes itself.
02:26The statistics seem to bear him out. Things weren't always better in the past.
02:34In the Stone Age, the probability of dying a violent death was between 10 and 20 percent.
02:41In the 20th century, however, despite the two world wars, atomic bombings and genocides,
02:48Globally speaking, the probability was only 1 to 2 percent.
02:54That's ten times lower than in the Stone Age.
03:01Back then, 10,000 years ago, the nature of war changed.
03:05Humans settled down, and the first advanced civilizations emerged.
03:09Those who lost a war could not simply move on.
03:13He was swallowed up by the victor.
03:15Over the millennia, ever larger and more powerful states emerged.
03:20The number of political actors decreased, and with it the number of potential conflicts.
03:25This development could eventually lead to a world government.
03:31Rulers who created powerful states tended to be nasty characters.
03:36who acted out of purely selfish motives.
03:39But if they govern such a state and want their people to pay taxes and work for them,
03:44They must ensure that it doesn't kill each other.
03:47The result?
03:50Societies became increasingly peaceful over time.
03:56The suffering of the individual is thus overlooked.
04:00Morris takes a sober look at long-term cost-benefit effects.
04:05Because, as with evolution, the mechanism of war only takes effect over many generations.
04:12History is just a sub-chapter of biology.
04:15Humans resemble animals in many ways, especially great apes.
04:20War as an evolutionary strategy?
04:23Humans are not alone in this.
04:25Chimpanzees, our closest relatives, are also going on war campaigns.
04:30Brutally.
04:33As long as the reward for blood seems high enough, they too will not shy away from murder and rape.
04:43In contrast, bonobos resolve their conflicts amicably.
04:47Through sex.
04:49And what about humans?
04:50He has both predispositions.
04:52War is becoming less and less worthwhile.
04:54Our reward for violence appears to be decreasing.
04:58If Immanuel Kant, who wrote the famous essay on perpetual peace, were alive today,
05:05He would probably say that we have almost achieved the peaceful world he envisioned.
05:11And there are good reasons to believe that we will get even closer to her in the 21st century.
05:16But I believe the risks and dangers will also increase.
05:20In fact, the next 40 or 50 years will be the most dangerous in world history.
05:27One hundred years ago, we seemed very close to world peace.
05:33Back then, it wasn't the USA that acted as the world's policeman, but the British Empire.
05:39And then, as now, a superpower faltered while a new heavyweight flexed its muscles.
05:45Will China repeat the same mistakes in the current conflict over a few uninhabited rocks in the South Pacific?
05:52which drove Germany into the First World War in 1914?
05:56Never has the reward for violence been so ridiculously low.
06:00But what does that even mean?
06:04One of the lessons we can learn from the past is that you can't simply wish war away.
06:10Simply saying that war is good for nothing, as the song does, leads nowhere.
06:25With such provocative theses, a second opinion is not a bad idea.
06:29We spoke with the prominent historian and author Herfried Münkler about this.
06:33who wrote one of the most interesting books about the First World War, "The Great War".
06:38You can hear and see his assessments on aspekte.de.
06:42What's still missing?
06:49Massive deployment of resources is intended to turn the tide of this war, but it only increases the number of victims.
06:59For the first time, the fighters are entrenching themselves in armored tracked vehicles.
07:03They are supposed to force a breakthrough.
07:06However, technical problems are still blocking the new technology that will shape future wars.
07:22Above all, it is a battle of cannons.
07:24Over half of all deaths in this war are due to shelling.
07:29Mostly defenseless, helplessly exposed to the gunfire.
07:3419-year-old Karl Schieber makes a note in his diary.
07:37The cannon fire is often so loud that one cannot hear a single cannon shot.
07:43but only hours of continuous rolling.
07:46When the fire dies down, the wailing of the injured can be heard.
07:50It's terrible what the shrapnel can do.
07:55The Germans first used chemical weapons in 1915.
08:00Poison gas.
08:01Despite the internationally agreed prohibition.
08:05The use of gas grenades is internationally prohibited.
08:08But the Germans release the chlorine gas from bottles in the direction of the enemy.
08:16The yellow fog drifted directly towards the French line.
08:24The soldiers had no chance of avoiding him.
08:28Those under attack quickly reinforce their defenses with chemical weapons.
08:31At the height of the gas war, every third grenade was filled with the insidious substance.
08:37Poison gas paralyzes breathing, decomposes the lungs, and robs eyesight.
08:42The shooter Kurt Werner remembers.
08:45I then came to the first protected trench of the English.
08:48They lay all over the trench, just as she had marched.
08:56The gas kills 100,000 people and injures 1.2 million.
09:00In the autumn of 1918, he also met the messenger Adolf Hitler, as he later dramatically described.
09:12After days of artillery barrage, the Western Allies are robbing their German opponents of every square meter of land.
09:30At the cost of more than a million victims, wounded, captured, and dead.
09:41However, the front line remains largely unchanged, just as it was in Verdun.
09:53Dying from a bullet doesn't seem difficult, writes a German soldier.
09:58But being torn apart, chopped into pieces, or pounded too thinly is a fear that meat cannot endure.
10:08This constant barrage, sometimes lasting for weeks, people near whom a grenade had exploded,
10:15who had been struck and injured by body parts of their fellow soldiers flying through the air.
10:21All these things were so terrible, so unimaginable, that they caused really severe trauma.
10:33War participants, scarred for life across all fronts.
10:40Fear and horror never leave her.
10:48Shell sickness, a new clinical picture.
10:51Mental collapse, triggered by days of constant barrage of gunfire.
10:57What does war do to men for whom mass death has become commonplace and barbarity a habit?
11:09Were the seeds for the crimes of the next war already sown on the battlefields of the First World War?
11:25Was created on the battlefields of the First World War.
12:03Was created on the battlefields of the First World War.
12:34See you next time.
12:55See you next time.
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