This is a review of an autobiography called Raven of Zurich by Felix Somary. Felix Somary was born in Vienna on November 20, 1881. He lived his early years in the former Austria-Hungary. He was a universal man; and had extensive knowledge of the arts, history, ancient culture, economics, science, history, and politics. By profession he was a banker. He was able to predict several important events in modern history, like WW1, the Great Depression, WW2 and so on. I will look at some of the most important events that Felix Somary predicted and explain how he was able to predict them.

  1. World War 1

    The war started, even though it would have been easy to prevent. During that time there were heavy tensions in Europe between Austria, England, and Germany. Somary knew this and tried to eliminate these tensions. He did this by making an alliance between the three countries. Somary had succeeded in forging an alliance between the countries related to a joint railroad project. Due to the alliance, the tension was defusing. The problem was that the situation didn’t defuse enough before the assassination of the heir presumptive of Austria-Hungary, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. There were only 14 days between the success of the alliance and the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Due to the death of the heir to the Austrian throne, the tensions between England and Germany came to a boiling point.
  2. The Great Depression

    The cause of the Great Depression started right after the end of the first world war. The banks couldn’t afford to pay off the money they borrowed during the war. They acquired all of the debt by giving out too many war bonds. These banks had two choices. Either they went bankrupt or they would have to start inflating. Most banks chose the latter option, even though Felix Somary thought that the former option was better in the long run. The inflation made prices to start rising and most people thought that this was a sign of an economic upturn. Somary thought of it as a sign of an upcoming depression and he was right. The reason that the depression went outside of the US was that other countries and people outside the US were relying on the US for credit.

  3. World War 2

    Everybody thought that after World War 1 no other world war would occur. They were wrong. The United States had swayed the war in favor of the Allies in World War 1. In the peace treaty, the losers had to pay repair costs. Moreover, Austria was broken up and Germany had to cede territory. This caused an immense hatred towards America and the other allies in Germany. This hatred can last a very long time and will never go away until the citizens think it has been rectified. This rage made German citizens adopt new forms of government that would have had a more difficult time gaining traction if the hatred had not existed. This fueled fascism and allowed Hitler to become elected. Hitler, in turn, fueled the rage even more. This eventually led Germany to wage an aggressive war.

  4. How America helped its own enemies 

    During the Second World War when Germany was attacking Moscow, Russia needed to put all of its military into Moscow. If Japan had been fighting Russia in the east, then Russia would not have been able to do this. Russia would not have been able to defend both sides at the same time and would have to surrender. Lucky for Russia, Japan was focusing all of its military against America. The biggest contribution to the start of the Cold War was that all of Russias enemies were defeated. During both world wars America completely defeated Germany, Turkey, Austria, Japan and Germany again. These were all Russia’s enemies and when they were all powerless, Russia was able to dominate and get much stronger. Instead of Russia’s enemies keeping Russia in check, now America had to defend these places. The problem was that Russia’s enemies were at the location and had cheap labour. America had to transport the troops to the territories and the labour costs were high.