Talk:Wolfgang Lotz

Birthplace

He was born in Berlin, according to an interview at that time, that was blurred in Israel to cover his personnality, "I was born and raised in Berlin".--Connection (talk) 22:24, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Mass arrest

This story given in this article of a mass arrest of all West German citizens in Egypt in 1965 to please the visiting East German, presumably Walter Ulbricht, through the article does not name him, is not supported by any RS, and goes against the established facts. Egypt did not establish diplomatic relations with East Germany until 1969, and before that time, there were a significant amount of West German money invested in Egypt. Given the extent of Egypt's economic problems by the mid-1960s with the Egyptian economy in free-fall, it seems odd for Nasser who was desperate for any source of money by that point, to gratuitously alienate and chase away the West Germans as this article claims. That is especially given the way that East Germany could not offer equivalent sums of money that West German government and businesses provided to Egypt. Anyhow, Nasser's role in the Cold War was that of the spoiler who always tried to play off the West against the East to get the best possible deal for Egypt. Throughout his rule, Nasser would tilt a little bit to one side and then to the other. If Nasser ended more of the Soviet side of things, it was because the Soviet Union sold him weapons whereas the United States would not, out of the fear American arms might be used against Israel. In its early years, the West German state was anxious to be recognized around the world as the legitimate German against East Germany, and in the 1950s-60s, the West Germans were very generous about providing economic aid to Third World nations that recognized Bonn instead of East Berlin. One of the recipients of this largess was Egypt. By early 1965, there were problems in West German-Egyptian relations as Nasser started to demand more economic aid than what the West Germans were willing to provide, hence his invitation to Ulbricht to visit Egypt in 1965 with the implied threat that Egypt would recognize East Germany as the legitimate German government. In the 1950s-60, both German regimes claimed to be the legitimate German government, and denounced the other as a fraud. Ulbricht's visit to Egypt is best understood as essentially a blackmail attempt by Nasser to force the West Germans to increase their economic aid, which was successful. It was in 1969 when the West Germans refused another Egyptian request for more economic aid that Egypt finally recognized East Germany.      

The article does not mention this, but in Egypt all of the staple foods are heavily subsidised by the government to be sold either at cost or below the cost, with the implicit social contract that nobody starves in Egypt in exchange for the people do not riot. The problem with this set-up is that throughout the 20th century and continuing right up to this day, Egypt's population vastly exceeds the agricultural productivity of Egypt's land, meaning Egypt has to import food to feed its people. At present, Egypt has almost 100 million people and that number looks set to double within the next 20 years. It goes without saying that from the financial viewpoint that it is ruinously wasteful to buy massive amounts of food abroad at market prices and then sell it at either cost or below cost. Enter the American Public Law 40 of 1954, which allows the United States to sell surplus food at cost to any "friendly nation". Nasser got to be very dependent on PL 40 in the 1950s to feed his people without bankrupting Egypt, all the more so because he also spent massive sums of money buying weapons from the Soviet Union, and when Lyndon Johnson ended the PL 40 food sales to Egypt in early 1965, that caused some very serious economic problems in Egypt. The last five years of Nasser's rule from 1965 to 1970 are not well remembered in Egypt, being recalled as a time of mounting poverty and falling living standards. Given the way that Nasser was desperate for money by 1965, the idea that he would chase away West German money just to please East Germany seems fanciful. By that point, Nasser certainly knew very well that Communist nations were very good at promising economic aid, but less so when it came to delivering, which he is why he kept a door open to the West despite all his anti-Western speeches. Anyhow, every book I have ever read says that Lotz was captured after the Egyptians traced radio transmissions to Israel back to his house in Cairo.

Along the same lines, relations between Syria and Egypt were not friendly in 1965. Nasser talked much about his dream of uniting the Arabs into one state, which was actually a form of Egyptian imperialism since he envisioned himself as the leader of this pan-Arab state. Nasser happened to be the most charismatic Egyptian who ever lived, and a great many ordinary people across the Arab world got up by his intoxicating vision of an Arab super-state standing as an equal to the super-powers. In 1958, the Syrians joined Egypt to form the United Arab Republic. The Syrians quickly got disenchanted once they discovered that Nasser did not see the Syrians as his equals, and instead treated Syria like an Egyptian colony. In 1961, the Syrians broke away from the United Arab Republic and reestablished their independence, something that Nasser did not forgive or forget. Nasser always saw Syria as a rebellious Egyptian province that he would take back one day, which understandably caused problems in Egyptian-Syrian relations. Relations were extremely bad between Cairo and Damascus right up to the spring of 1967, when the Syrians decided to make up with Egypt because of their issues with Israel. Nasser seeing a chance to take back Syria foolishly took up the Syrian offer of an alliance, drawing Egypt into what was essentially a Syrian-Israeli dispute, and settling the stage for the Six Day war, but that is another story. The point here is that Egyptian-Syrian relations were not at all friendly in 1965. If nobody objects, I'll to remove these dubious statements from this article. --A.S. Brown (talk) 22:20, 29 May 2020 (UTC)