Talk:Imperial German plans for the invasion of the United States

World War I

This is a paragraph from a deleted article that might be useful in an Aftermath section.

Holger Herwig explains how, during World War I, “Foreign Secretary Zimmermann . . . sent Mexico an offer . . . to join Germany (and Japan) against the United States in return for Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas!” (Holger Herwig, The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary, 1914-1918 (London: Arnold, 1997), 305.) Moreover, in the waning days of the war, “. . . Wilhelm II’s main concern . . . was how he could ‘supply Japan with ammunition in its war with America’!” (Holger Herwig, The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary, 1914-1918 (London: Arnold, 1997), 215). However during this period Japan and the Untied States were part of the alliance at war with the Axis powers.

As I did not write the paragraph I can not vouch for the accuracy of the wording, and I suggest that before it is added to an article page someone checks if it is accurate. --PBS (talk) 07:39, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I created the page, and I will contest that it is accurate. I first heard the idea during a lecture when I was an undergrad. then I heard about it again from this dvd: http://www.amazon.com/First-World-War-Complete/dp/B0009S2K9C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1248416575&sr=1-1 The sources I have sited are sufficient. - Mdriver1981 (talk) 06:23, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Relevance

This article ends with: "As a result of this decision, North America was relatively unscathed with the exception of a few attacks on North America during World War I." I did not write that, nor do I endorse that observation. This topic does not have much to do with World War I, being that it all is about events that happened several years prior and has nothing to do with the war's creation and such. - Mdriver1981 (talk) 06:43, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Betrieblich Plan Drei

As a native German speaker I am having a really hard time believing that "Betrieblich Plan Drei" is anything but the result of machine translation gone awry. 88.66.36.58 (talk) 16:53, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Die Zeit calls the 1903 plan (in German) Operationsplan III. That's the third plan to invade the USA. I don't know if there's a name for the overall idea; a name to call all three. Binksternet (talk) 14:11, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Legacy

I changed the wording of the first paragraph of the Legacy section. There were many other reasons for the outbreak of WWI, although Germany's aggressive foreign policy played an important role. These aggressive policies were not limited to Wilhelm II alone but were representative for various contemporary German politicans and military leaders as well as a large number of the German population. The comparison to Hitler's policies is a very controversial point. The statement about this in the first paragraph was redundant in my opinion since the quote from Die Zeit later in the same section sums up the same problem in a better way. It would be helpful if more assessments of the plan were available since the question of parallels between Imperial Germany and Nazi Germany is so controversial. I don't know if other wiki articles cover this. I fear that to go into too much detail about the general assessment of the different foreign policies in this article would be beyond its scope. PINTofCARLING (talk) 19:24, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Good work! Binksternet (talk) 19:51, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

What "aggressive foreign policy"? 105.12.4.148 (talk) 19:09, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Relevance?

In all my decades of reading about the two world wars, in English and German, I never encountered anything about this topic. One must wonder how seriously anyone took these notions — except, perhaps, for Wilhelm II himself, that deluded dilettante and neurotic dreamer, for a few minutes anyway! I doubt very much that the German General Staff gave these plans any credence. Sca (talk) 01:28, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Tirpitz apparently thought it was a fine idea to expand the Imperial German Navy. I wonder if he would have been more cautious as the prospect neared of actually carrying out the foolish plan.

I think America would not have negotiated with an invasion force. Binksternet (talk) 01:39, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

catagories

why do we call a plain that was never activated "canceled"?35.24.32.134 (talk) 03:20, 9 April 2016 (UTC)