German National Identity in the Twenty-First Century: A Different Republic After All? (New Perspectives in German Political Studies)

New Perspectives in German Political Studies General Editors: William Paterson OBE is Honorary Professor in German and European Politics at the University of Aston and Chairman of the German British Forum. Charlie Jeffery is Professor of Politics at the University of Edinburgh. Germany remains a pivotal country in Europe. It is Europe’s biggest economy, continues to play a central role in the European Union, and has a growing significance in international security politics based on its strategic location at the centre of Europe and its evolving role as a provider of security in Europe and beyond. All this is nuanced by the legacies of a turbulent recent history: the two World Wars, the Holocaust, Germany’s division after World War II and its unification in 1990. New Perspectives in German Political Studies has been designed as a platform for debate and scholarship on contemporary Germany. It welcomes contributions from political science, international relations, political economy and contemporary history. It follows on from the success of the earlier series on New Perspectives in German Studies, co-edited by William Paterson and the late Professor Michael Butler. Titles include: Alister Miskimmon, William E. Paterson and James Sloam (editors) GERMANY’S GATHERING CRISIS The 2005 Federal Election and the Grand Coalition Anne Fuchs PHANTOMS OF WAR IN CONTEMPORARY GERMAN LITERATURE, FILMS AND DISCOURSE The Politics of Memory Caroline Pearce CONTEMPORARY GERMANY AND THE NAZI LEGACY Remembrance, Politics and the Dialectic of Normality Beverly Crawford POWER AND GERMAN FOREIGN POLICY Embedded Hegemony in Europe Dan Hough, Michael Koß and Jonathan Olsen THE LEFT PARTY IN CONTEMPORARY GERMAN POLITICS Roger Woods GERMANY’S NEW RIGHT AS CULTURE AND POLITICS Christian Schweiger BRITAIN, GERMANY AND THE FUTURE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION Karl Christian Führer and Corey Ross (editors) MASS MEDIA, CULTURE AND SOCIETY IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY GERMANY

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Matthew M.C. Allen THE VARIETIES OF CAPITALISM PARADIGM Explaining Germany’s Comparative Advantage? Gunther Hellmann (editor) GERMANY’S EU POLICY IN ASYLUM AND DEFENCE De-Europeanization by Default? Chantal Lacroix IMMIGRANTS, LITERATURE AND NATIONAL INTEGRATION Charles Lees PARTY POLITICS IN GERMANY A Comparative Politics Approach Ronald Speirs and John Breuilly (editors) GERMANY’S TWO UNIFICATIONS Anticipations, Experiences, Responses James Sloam THE EUROPEAN POLICY OF THE GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATS Interpreting a Changing World Margarete Kohlenbach WALTER BENJAMIN Self-Reference and Religiosity Henning Tewes GERMANY, CIVILIAN POWER AND THE NEW EUROPE Enlarging Nato and the European Union Wolf-Dieter Eberwein and Karl Kaiser (editors) GERMANY’S NEW FOREIGN POLICY Decision-Making in an Interdependent World Gerard Braunthal RIGHT-WING EXTREMISM IN CONTEMPORARY GERMANY A Threat to Democracy? Ruth Wittlinger GERMAN NATIONAL IDENTITY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY A Different Republic After All?

New Perspectives in German Political Studies Series Standing Order ISBN 978–0–333–92430–3 hardcover Series Standing Order ISBN 978–0–333–92434–1 paperback (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBNs quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England

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German National Identity in the Twenty-First Century A Different Republic After All? Ruth Wittlinger Senior Lecturer in the School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University, UK

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© Ruth Wittlinger 2010 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–0–230–57775–6 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wittlinger, Ruth, 1961– German national identity in the twenty-first century : a different republic after all? / Ruth Wittlinger. p. cm.—(New perspectives in German studies) Summary: “This book shows that German national identity has undergone considerable changes since unification in 1990. Due to the external pressures of the post-cold war world but also due to domestic developments such as recent dynamics of collective memory, Germany has re-emerged as a confident nation which is less hesitant to assert its national interest”—Provided by publisher. ISBN 978–0–230–57775–6 (hardback) 1. Group identity – Germany. 2. Group identity – Political aspects – Germany. 3. Germany – Politics and government – 1990– I. Title. DD290.29.W62 2010 943.088—dc22 2010027569 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

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In memory of my parents Gertrud Wittlinger (1920–1998) and Albert Wittlinger (1916–2009)

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Contents List of Abbreviations

viii

Acknowledgements

ix

Introduction: A Different Republic After All?

1

1

German National Identity and the Nazi Past

17

2

The Quest for ‘Inner Unity’

47

3

From Prosperity to a Democracy of Want?

71

4

The New Germany in the New Europe: A Leading Power

91

Germany’s New Foreign Policy Identity

115

5

Conclusion: German National Identity in the Twenty-First Century

139

Notes

146

Bibliography

167

Index

181

vii

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Abbreviations CDU CSU DVU EC ECSC EEC ESDP EU FDP FRG GDR IGC NATO NPD OECD PDS SED SPD Stasi UN WASG ZDF

Christlich Demokratische Union (Christian Democratic Union) Christlich-Soziale Union (Christian-Social Union) Deutsche Volksunion (German People’s Union) European Community European Coal and Steel Community European Economic Community European Security and Defence Policy European Union Freie Demokratische Partei (Free Democratic Party) Federal Republic of Germany German Democratic Republic Intergovernmental Conference North Atlantic Treaty Organization Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (National Democratic Party) Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Partei des demokratischen Sozialismus (Party of Democratic Socialism) Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (Socialist Unity Party) Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democratic Party) Staatssicherheitsdienst (Ministry for State Security) United Nations Wahlalternative Arbeit und Soziale Gerechtigkeit (Electoral Alternative Labour and Social Justice) Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen

viii

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Acknowledgements I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Leverhulme Foundation for granting me a Fellowship which allowed me to attend conferences and, above all, gave me time to write up my research. In particular, I would like to thank the staff there for their straightforward and unbureaucratic way of administering the Fellowship! Many thanks also go to the British Academy for a grant that enabled me to carry out some of the research in Germany. I am also most grateful to Prof. Willie Paterson and the editorial team at Palgrave for their interest in the project and their support. I would also like to thank Prof. Charlie Jeffery and the anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments. I would like to thank all my friends, family and colleagues in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States who knew when to ask, but maybe even more importantly, who also knew when not to ask how it was going. Their support was crucial in seeing this through. Special thanks go to Steffi Boothroyd, Eric Langenbacher, Klaus Larres, Joyce Mushaben, Bill Niven, Hartwig Pautz, Christian Schweiger and Steve Welch for reading draft chapters and making helpful suggestions. The usual caveat applies. All errors and omissions remain my own responsibility, of course. My deepest thanks go to Kevin, my ‘person without whom’.

ix

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Introduction: A Different Republic After All?

There was a lot of speculation not only on the domestic effect of German unification but also on the effect it would have on its international role. Would Germany’s increase in size and new central position in the post-Cold War order go hand in hand with a new self-understanding? Would its national identity continue to be influenced by its Nazi past or would it come out of the ‘shadow’ of the Third Reich and reassert itself? Would it continue to build on the ‘soft power’ accumulated during the lifetime of the Bonn Republic or would it resort to a more conventional Machtpolitik (power politics)? And how would the new Germany fit into the new Europe? Predictions varied greatly. Whereas some – especially in Germany – expected that what ‘belonged together’ would now ‘grow together’, others predicted enormous social and economic problems for the new Germany. And whereas Germans themselves largely expected their country’s foreign policy behaviour and its international role to remain the same, international commentators expressed doubt that the new Germany would fit neatly into the new post-Cold War world and could maintain the foreign policy identity that had emerged in the Bonn Republic. Germans themselves had a vested interest in believing that nothing much would change in the new Germany and that before long the east would become like the west. West Germans had grown fond of their Republic which had provided decades of peace, political stability and economic success and East Germans were keen to join a system they had observed from the other side of the Iron Curtain as providing political liberties and material affluence to their Western counterparts since the foundation of the two states in 1949. 1

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2

German National Identity in the Twenty-First Century

The positive development of the West German state was in stark contrast to the regime that preceded it and the collective memory of which – more or less explicitly at different times – accompanied its existence. The single most important factor that determined the shape as well as the nature of the Bonn Republic was the legacy of the National Socialist past and the Second World War.1 This legacy could not only be seen in Germany’s division and the semi-sovereign nature of the Federal Republic, but its impact was also very apparent in its political institutions, in key discourses and in West Germany’s international role. The West German constitution – called the Basic Law in order to underline its provisional character – prescribed an extensive system of checks and balances which were to avoid the mistakes of the past. On the one hand this meant that – in contrast to the liberal and democratic constitution of the Weimar Republic which gave way to the Nazi dictatorship – it had to ensure the protection of the democratic state and its key principles. On the other hand, however, it had to make certain that a concentration and subsequent abuse of power as had happened with disastrous consequences in the Third Reich was under no circumstances repeated. The Federal Republic thus turned into the antithesis of the Third Reich, as Adenauer had described it. West Germany’s liberal democratic order as enshrined in the Basic Law placed key emphasis on human rights, the rule of law and values such as liberty and equality, on the separation of powers and the accountability of government as well as an independent judiciary. In the spirit of pluralism, it was aimed at ensuring party competition at the same time as making coalition government very likely. Its federalism and its electoral system made strong central government by single party rule highly unlikely if not impossible. With the requirement of a two-third majority in both chambers, the threshold for constitutional change was also set quite high. The new democratic system introduced in 1949 required cooperation and consensus to achieve policy change which was then usually characterised by incrementalism rather than radicalism.2 In contrast to the Weimar Republic, the constitution also sought to ensure that the new West German democracy was in a position to defend itself. As Patricia Hogwood has pointed out, although it is in the nature of Western European polities to invite and promote a certain degree of self-scrutiny and critical evaluation, it was in the

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Introduction 3

Federal Republic of Germany where ‘it was felt particularly keenly throughout the post-war years’ and where ‘concerns with the defence of the constitutional order have achieved their clearest elaboration’.3 The Federal Republic subscribed to the concept of a ‘militant’ or ‘combative’ democracy (wehrhafte or streitbare Demokratie), that is, a democracy able to defend itself and the normative principles on which it is based against anti-democratic, illiberal forces even if at times this amounted to curtailing basic democratic rights such as free speech. Dealing with what Loewenstein – who developed the concept of ‘militant democracy’ in view of National Socialism establishing itself in Germany in the interwar period – called the ‘thorniest’ problems of democratic states of ‘curbing the freedom of public opinion, speech, and press in order to check the unlawful use thereof by revolutionary and subversive propaganda’,4 the fathers and mothers of the Basic Law provided the Federal Republic with a number of safeguards for the defence of the new democracy. The new constitution contained provisions, such as the possibility to ban extremist parties, to ensure that the enemies of democracy would not be able to abolish the constitutional order and its key principles by recourse to democratic means. Apart from having a strong influence on the nature of the new Republic in terms of its constitution, the Nazi period also provided the key to West Germany’s place within the international community. Germany’s unconditional surrender in 1945 and the subsequent years of occupation resulted, in formal-legal terms, in West Germany being a semi-sovereign state.5 Its powers over external matters were significantly restricted by the continued input of the Western Allies. This came to an end with the Germany Treaty which came into force in 1955, when the Federal Republic formally regained sovereignty as an independent state. Until the Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect To Germany (Two-plus-Four Treaty) which paved the way for unification in 1990, however, the theme of semi-sovereignty continued. Even after West Germany had gained full sovereignty in 1955, it was heavily dependent on the United States for security and its foreign policy continued to operate under restrictions. West Germany’s military and moral defeat of 1945 hugely impacted not only on its standing in the international community but also on its own perception of its international role. The obsession with power (Machtversessenheit) of the first half of the twentieth

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German National Identity in the Twenty-First Century

century changed into an oblivion of power (Machtvergessenheit) in West Germany’s foreign policy conduct during the second half of the twentieth century.6 The Federal Republic seemed quite happy to keep a low profile internationally and to follow a multilateral path in Europe as well as in transatlantic relations at the same time as fostering its key bilateral relationships with France and the United States. Its principal goals were to regain the trust of the international community and ensure security vis-à-vis the Soviet threat. Throughout the lifetime of the Bonn Republic, its conduct in foreign affairs was characterised by modesty and a ‘culture of restraint’. Furthermore, the Nazi past provided the key to the discursive construction of its collective identity domestically. It provided the ‘basic narrative’ of the Federal Republic7 and made any identification with the nation highly contentious as well as difficult. The collective memory of the Nazi past played a key role in the self-understanding of the Bonn Republic and it was the debates about the past, or at times the lack of them, which provided the best clues regarding Germany’s self-understanding. The history of the Bonn Republic was characterised by a struggle to find a place for the Holocaust and the Second World War in the national consciousness. Whereas nationalconservative critics frequently wanted to consign Hitler to history in order to allow for positive expressions of German national identity to emerge, left-liberal intellectuals insisted that only an identity that had Auschwitz at its core and was committed to the constitution and its key values was justifiable. As an alternative to patriotism based on the concept of the nation, German collective identity was to be based on a commitment to the democratic principles, values and institutions that had developed after and, to some extent, because of Auschwitz. Whether such ‘constitutional patriotism’ ever became deeply embedded in the Bonn Republic is debatable but the continued presence of the Nazi past and the collective memory of its destructive nationalism ensured that the notion of the nation remained tainted. The idea of a post-national identity which subscribed to cosmopolitanism rather than to narrow-minded and backward-looking nationalism provided an attractive way out of the dilemma Germany faced in the aftermath of the Holocaust and the Second World War. Identification with and pride in the nation was not only replaced by a commitment to universal values but from the ‘economic miracle’

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Introduction 5

(Wirtschaftswunder) of the 1950s onwards also by pride in the economic achievements of the Bonn Republic. The Bonn Republic was a success story made up of not only a democratic state that was based on the rule of law but also a successful social market economy which provided political and economic stability and widespread affluence. It was a state that appeared to have moved beyond primitive notions of nationalism and that was happy to be integrated into a number of supranational as well as international institutions and organisations. It continued to be reluctant to express its national interest explicitly even though this did not necessarily mean that its actions were not in the national interest. All this amounted to a state that was very different from its predecessors but also from its neighbours in Western Europe. The question of whether West Germany was a ‘normal state’ was – right from its foundation in 1949 – one of the core issues in debates about its self-understanding. The suspicion of ‘abnormality’ was partly based on Germany’s National Socialist past and expressed in discussions about Vergangenheitsbewältigung (‘coming to terms with the past’), by and large revolving around the question of whether a return to ‘normality’ was possible or even desirable after Auschwitz, and partly on the consequence of that past in terms of statehood, that is, the reality of the divided Germany between 1949 and 1990. As German President Gustav Heinemann put it, Germany was a ‘difficult fatherland’. The term ‘normalisation’ was used and abused in various ways over the lifetime of the Federal Republic. In very general terms, it has been described as ‘the Germans’ obsession with wanting to be perceived as “just like everybody else” ’.8 According to McAdams, this applied in particular to German political elites: ‘It is hard to think of a group of contemporary politicians more obsessed with debating their state’s normalcy than the Germans.’9 The underlying motives for these debates about Germany’s ‘normalisation’ were frequently found in the desire to bury that particular part of Germany’s past which took place between 1933 and 1945. A comment made in 1983 by the late Alfred Dregger, at the time chairman of the parliamentary party of the CDU/CSU which suggested that it was time for all Germans to come out of Hitler’s shadow and become ‘normal’, illustrates this link between Vergangenheitsbewältigung and ‘normality’ very explicitly.10 For Germany to be perceived as ‘normal’ meant

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German National Identity in the Twenty-First Century

absolution from the barbaric atrocities committed during the Third Reich and implied regaining acceptance as a civilised nation in the international community. Emphasising the point that ‘normalisation’ became the overarching goal of the post-war years, Schweigler accordingly described the yearning for ‘normality’ as reflecting ‘the search for a way out of the guilt’.11 But as Habermas pointed out it was ‘the avoidance of a self-satisfied, covering-up consciousness of “normality” ’ that had allowed ‘halfway normal conditions to emerge’ in the old Federal Republic.12 The terms ‘normalisation’ and ‘normality’ were also linked to the divided and in that sense ‘abnormal’ nature of post-war Germany. In the 1970s, for example, the term ‘normalisation’ was used to describe the period of rapprochement between the two German states in the context of Brandt’s Ostpolitik. Just when West Germans appeared to have accepted their provisional state as ‘normality’,13 the regime in the GDR collapsed and through unification an extended FRG was created leaving not much intact that used to make up the GDR in structural terms. Unification meant that Germany lost its semi-sovereign status, making it in this respect ‘more normal’ than it had been at any other time since the end of the Second World War. However, just as the two Germanies had come to regard division as normal, the international community had, too. The division of Germany was largely regarded ‘as a prerequisite for stability in Europe’14 and when the prospect of unification arose, Germany’s neighbours reacted with concern which ranged from the question of whether Germany would now behave like a ‘normal’ state, to fears that a united Germany would dominate Europe and alarm that a ‘Fourth Reich’ would emerge. International concerns were to an extent mirrored domestically. In contrast to the relief expressed in the 1950s that Bonn was not Weimar, its success between 1949 and 1989 made it highly desirable that continuity would prevail and that united Germany would be very much like the Bonn Republic. The domestically felt desire for continuity rather than change coincided neatly with what the international community wanted to hear and the German political leadership was only too happy to confirm that nothing would change. Chancellor Kohl himself – having been in power for most of the 1980s – symbolised that everything would stay the same and went out of his way to emphasise that united

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Introduction 7

Germany would simply be a bigger version of the Bonn Republic and was not going to change either its identity or the political traditions that had evolved since 1949. Reluctance to acknowledge that change might be inevitable became very apparent in the discussions regarding the new capital Berlin and whether it should also become the seat of parliament and government or whether these key political institutions should remain in Bonn from where the Federal Republic had been successfully governed since 1949. Even though the Bundestag voted narrowly in favour of Berlin, the discussions surrounding the decision – after all, its provincial and modest capital had very much symbolised the spirit of the Bonn Republic – illustrated just how much German political elites assumed that Germany could and would stay the same. Around the time of the move, which took place not long before the 50th anniversary of the Basic Law and the foundation of the Federal Republic was commemorated in May 1999, leading politicians frequently dismissed the claim that the relocation of the parliament and government from Bonn to Berlin constituted a new era, again and again demonstrating their reluctance to let go of the provincial ethos of the Bonn Republic. While the media hailed the first plenary session of the Bundestag in the newly converted Reichstag in Berlin on 19 April 1999 as the beginning of a new era, political elites were quick to point out that even though this move might appear like a new beginning, they were banking on continuity. Wolfgang Thierse, President of the Bundestag, bluntly stated: ‘We don’t want a different Republic.’15 Similarly, Peter Struck, chairman of the parliamentary party of the SPD asserted that Germany neither wanted nor needed a new Republic and that the traditions which had been developed in Bonn over the last 50 years would be continued in Berlin, emphasising that the basic tenets of Germany’s politics and policies ‘will not and must not change’.16 Implicitly contrasting the change of the seat of government and parliament with previous ones, Chancellor Schröder suggested that the move from Bonn to Berlin was not a break with the continuity of the Federal Republic’s post-war history since it was not happening because the Republic had failed in Bonn.17 Already in February 1999, Federal President Roman Herzog spelt out quite what the move meant and what it did not mean. In no uncertain terms, Herzog made clear it was a ‘change of place, not a change

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German National Identity in the Twenty-First Century

of direction’ for the politics and policy of the Federal Republic. The basic values and interests of Germany would remain the same, just like the same long-established principles that had been guiding its political behaviour would not change, according to Herzog. The continuity of its political elites would further contribute to the sense of everything staying the same, he argued.18 Chancellor Schröder, however, broke with the rhetoric of continuity to a degree and started paving the way for change. In a statement on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Basic Law, he said that the move to Berlin stood for continuity but also for change and modernisation.19 In his speech during the first plenary session of the Bundestag in the newly converted Reichstag in Berlin on 19 April 1999, Schröder also suggested that the generational change brought about by the new government would have an impact. He noted that generational change caused by those with a living memory of the Second World War leaving office meant significant change in the politics of any country. And this, Schröder argued, applied even more so in Germany. In his view this clearly had an impact on Germany’s international role. In the context of the events in Kosovo, Schröder suggested that ‘Germany’s role in the world had changed’ and that Germany – more intensively than during the years of division and its immediate aftermath – carried more responsibility also for the fate of other peoples. He spoke of a ‘new German responsibility’ that in his view was to be expected with the end of the Cold War and German unity.20 Already in his first government declaration on 10 November 1998, Schröder had asserted that German democracy was not ‘a delicate little plant anymore but a strong tree’. 21 Acknowledging that Germany continued to have a special historical responsibility, in the first plenary session of the Bundestag in the newly converted Reichstag he described Germany as a confident and forward-looking nation which was on a par with other nations. Quoting from Bertold Brecht’s children’s hymn, Chancellor Schröder also showed himself beyond postnationalism: And because we are tending to this land, May we love and protect it; And may it seem to us the dearest, Just as to others their own land seems.22

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Introduction 9

As early as 1995, German publicist Johannes Gross had coined the term ‘Berlin Republic’23 and in spite of continued affirmations of continuity, the term increasingly gained currency. In particular, it was used to describe the Republic which began to emerge under the red-green coalition from 1998 onwards. Gerhard Schröder later pointed out how the discussions about the move from Bonn to Berlin at the beginning of the 1990s in his view illustrated how ‘unbelievably ignorant and naive’ Germany and its political elites including himself had been when they ‘stumbled into this new epoch of postwar history’.24 In retrospect, Gerhard Schröder interpreted the move of the parliament and government to Berlin as the decisive caesura for the new Germany: ‘as if a veil had been lifted which cleared the view.’25 In his memoirs, Schröder described the transition from the Bonn to the Berlin Republic and the contribution of the red-green coalition to this process as follows: That part of Germany which had developed as a result of the economic miracle and was governed from Bonn had been the ‘showcase’ of the West during the times of the Cold War and had comfortably settled into its special role. Unity had not contributed to national over-exuberance – neither in the west nor in the east – but at the same time the hopes of many people had still not faded that the familiar West German provinciality could be maintained in united Germany. After two world wars and inflation, the people wanted to hold onto it, nothing was to change this condition. Right from the beginning it was the brief of the red-green coalition to impress on the people that in order to maintain prosperity and possibly expand it, they must be prepared to accept change.26 In spite of some harbingers of change – rhetorically as well as regarding policy – at the end of the 1990s, there was by and large a consensus – also among the academic community – that continuity rather than change had characterised the first decade of united Germany. At the same time, however, suspicions started to be articulated that it was the ‘rhetoric of continuity’ rather than continuity itself that insinuated that everything was staying the same.27 Germany had maintained its ‘exceptionalism’ in many fields. The Nazi past and the responsibility arising out of it for contemporary

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German National Identity in the Twenty-First Century

Germany continued to be present and the German state largely maintained its reluctance to express its national interest overtly. Its foreign policy was still guided by strong multilateralism even though it was this commitment to multilateralism which caused a break with the ‘culture of restraint’ and Germany’s participation in military action during the Kosovo War. Furthermore, political elites continued to uphold Germany’s commitment to European integration even though its costs and benefits for Germany started to be questioned more readily. Discussions about German ‘normality’ also continued to be present throughout the 1990s. As McAdams has pointed out, ‘[w]ith the opening of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the unification of the two German states one year later in October 1990, the theme of normalcy has been an undercurrent to just about every significant policy debate in the Federal Republic of Germany’.28 A parallel development could be witnessed in academia. Throughout the 1990s and the first few years of the new millennium, political scientists and historians frequently posed the question of whether Germany had finally become a ‘normal state’.29 The post-Cold War (dis)order which emerged in the 1990s and which presented different power constellations and new problems provided the backdrop to these discussions. With the demise of the Soviet Union, (Western) Europe had – compared with the key geopolitical role it had played during the Cold War – become strategically less important for the United States. And although Europe became more integrated throughout the 1990s, this was not translated into military strength. As Robert Kagan pointed out, the Europeans took the collapse of the Soviet Union as an opportunity ‘to cash in on a sizable peace dividend’ rather than as an opportunity ‘to flex global muscles’.30 The Balkan wars in the 1990s illustrated only too clearly that Europe was unprepared to solve the crises ‘in its own backyard’ without American help and it came increasingly under pressure to pull its weight and not leave everything to American military might. The St Malo initiative of President Chirac and Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1998 was thus aimed at setting the wheels in motion to achieve more defence cooperation within Europe. While Europeans discussed their security and defence only reluctantly and Germans by and large – Gerhard Schröder providing a notable exception – expected the Berlin Republic to continue its international role carried over from the Bonn Republic, voices outside of

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Introduction 11

Europe became increasingly vocal in depicting Germany in a new role. Already in May 1989 during the run-up to German unification, President George H. W. Bush invited Germany to be ‘partners in leadership’. The question remained, however, whether Germany could perform any – even joint – leadership role without matching the increase in structural power it had gained through unification with an increase in political power. And how would it fit into the new Europe if it were to play an enhanced role? Kagan summed up the ambivalence felt in the Federal Republic but also in Europe at large about united Germany’s role: And, of course, it is precisely this fear that still hangs over Europeans, even as Europe moves forward. Europeans, and particularly the French and Germans, are not entirely sure that the problem once known as the ‘German problem’ really has been solved. ... the French are still not confident they can trust the Germans, and the Germans are still not sure they can trust themselves.31 Markovits and Reich also contributed to the discussion of the ‘German problem’ in the wake of unification. In their view, Germany’s power was an inevitable product of its size, geography and economic capacity whether Germany pursued this power or not. In their view even a ‘completely demilitarized, well-meaning, reticent Germany ruled by the pacifist Left would be a powerful country whose actions, for better or worse, would have enormous consequences for its neighbours’.32 Markovits and Reich saw it as a problem that ‘the contemporary ideology of smallness’ that in their view governed Germany prevented it from recognising its own centrality to the new order. They described Germany’s reluctance to acknowledge its power as ‘deeply selfish, for it is oblivious to the costs and benefits for others’.33 Accordingly, Germany was ‘once again in an unenviable predicament. It is damned if it acts in a way commensurate with its structural power, and it is damned if it stays aloof and acts small’.34 This book aims to show how Germany has responded to the predicament. It will argue that German national identity – as it is discursively constructed but also how it is expressed in particular policies and behaviour – has undergone considerable changes. Partly due to the external pressures of the post-Cold War world but partly also due

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to domestic developments such as the recent dynamics of collective memory, Germany has re-emerged as a confident nation which is less hesitant to assert its national interests internationally. In a seemingly paradoxical fashion, this reassertion takes place against a background of economic problems and an increasing realisation that the differences between east and west – material as well as in terms of attitudes – have turned out to be much more resilient than had been anticipated on the eve of German unification.

German national identity in the twenty-first century The concept of the nation is ‘notoriously nebulous’35 and related notions such as national identity are highly controversial. As Mary Fulbrook has pointed out, broadly speaking, theorists on nations and national identity fall more or less clearly into two categories. Those she terms ‘essentialists’ view nations ‘as if they were natural entities [ ... ] fundamentally based on the premise – which to be accepted must remain unexamined – that nations have some lasting “essence” ’.36 The group she refers to as ‘constructionists’ on the other hand – which includes Ernest Gellner, Benedict Anderson, Eric Hobsbawm and Anthony Smith – considers nations ‘as historically emergent constructions rather than eternal givens or natural entities’.37 Eric Hobsbawm, for instance, has pointed out in this context that the criteria commonly used to define nationhood such as ‘language, ethnicity or whatever’ are ‘fuzzy, shifting and ambiguous’ making them ‘unusually convenient for propagandist and programmatic, as distinct from descriptive purposes’.38 Similarly, Benedict Anderson has suggested that nations are ‘imagined communities’ or even ‘cultural artifacts of a particular kind’.39 As Anderson has also noted, however, ‘nation-ness is the most universally legitimate value in the political life of our time’.40 In spite of regionalisation processes, those elected and legitimised to govern the state that is often based on this elusive notion of the nation, the nation-state – whether that nation is considered to have some ‘essence’ or whether it is seen as ‘constructed’– (at least in theory) represent the views of its nationals and continue to shape the political, economic and social conditions of the lives of its citizens. In spite of the Europeanisation of many policy areas, the German nationstate’s parliament and government are legitimised to exercise state

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Introduction 13

authority and – as confirmed in the German Federal Constitutional Court’s ruling on the Lisbon Treaty in June 2009 – continue to have the ultimate power to confer competences (Kompetenz-Kompetenz). When based on this functional understanding of the nation-state – that its key political, social, economic and cultural institutions in a complex relationship with its citizens together shape its collective identity which is claimed to be neither static nor homogenous – the notion of a national identity becomes less controversial and thus provides the basis for this discussion. In order to illustrate the changes that have taken place, I will examine those areas which used to be significant in terms of defining the Bonn Republic’s ‘exceptionalism’ and which now provide significant component parts of Germany’s new identity.41 Whereas the Bonn Republic was characterised by the presence of the Nazi past, Germany’s division, economic prosperity, model Europeanism and a rather deferential conduct in international affairs, the Berlin Republic has seen significant changes in these key areas. Debates about Germany’s past since unification have undergone a diversification which provides a much more comfortable basis for an identification with the German nation than at any other point since 1945. At the same time, however, formal division seems to have turned into mere formal unity and a perceived lack of ‘inner unity’ has become one of the trademarks of the Berlin Republic. And whereas the success of Modell Deutschland used to be a key defining feature of the Bonn Republic’s identity, debates about its decline and Germany’s economic problems since unification suggest significant change in this area, too. At the same time, Germany’s role in Europe has changed from that of a model European happy to finance compromises if they furthered the European project to a country that has lost some of its idealism for the European cause and has adopted a more sober approach in its European policy. And whereas the Bonn Republic’s foreign policy identity was characterised by a renunciation of power politics and strong antimilitarism, the Berlin Republic has returned ‘to the world stage’ in diplomatic as well as military terms.42 An examination of these different fields as a ‘package’ is crucial because it will allow for a comprehensive and illuminating evaluation of the shift in the self-conception and identity of the Berlin Republic and the different ways this has been expressed. It allows for a holistic approach which is not restricted to one particular policy area or

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German National Identity in the Twenty-First Century

discourse to assess questions of continuity and change and which takes into consideration changes in Germany’s self-understanding at the domestic level but also how these changes have manifested themselves externally. It thus uses the term national identity in a descriptive rather than normative sense as a term that accommodates this approach and allows for a comparison of the key features of the Bonn Republic with those of the Berlin Republic. As pointed out earlier, the legacy of the Nazi past was crucial to the self-understanding of post-war Germany. The first chapter will therefore give a brief overview of the way the two parts of Germany dealt with their Nazi past at various stages between 1949 and 1990. In particular, it will show how no consensus was reached throughout the lifetime of the Bonn Republic regarding the question of what place it should occupy in the national consciousness. It will then outline and assess the key developments in the dynamics of collective memory of Germany’s Nazi past since unification. In particular, it will show how an acknowledgement of German guilt and its institutionalisation, for example in the form of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, coupled with a renewed focus on German suffering has resulted in a past the collective memory of which indicates a very different selfunderstanding of the Federal Republic and allows for a much more comfortable and positive identification with the German nation. Chapter 2 will trace questions of identity in the two parts of Germany before and after unification. It will examine the way the ‘national question’ was perceived in the two German states between 1949 and 1989. It will outline and assess the way the GDR as well as the FRG provided ‘ersatz identities’ in the face of the historical legacy of the Nazi past and the presence of the divided nation. It will also examine the relevance of the concept of the nation in the collapse of communism and the events preceding formal unification. The chapter will then examine questions of identity in east and west since unification. In particular, it will question the usefulness of the quest for ‘inner unity’ at times so forcefully pursued by politicians as well as academics since 1990. It will also examine claims that – paradoxically after unification rather than during the lifetime of the GDR – an eastern identity has emerged which is said to constitute an obstacle to Germany’s ‘inner unity’. Chapter 3 will look at the link between economic performance and identification with the West German polity and its democratic

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Introduction 15

foundations after 1949. It will show how pride in the nation was substituted with pride in the Federal Republic’s economic achievements from the 1950s onwards and how an acceptance of West German democratic institutions were, at least initially, closely related to the performance of the system. It will outline to what extent the success of Modell Deutschland resulted in the emergence of a positive identification of the Federal Republic’s citizens with the achievements of the social market economy but also with the democratic order in more general terms. The chapter will also examine the reasons for the recent decline of the Modell Deutschland and consider the impact of this decline on issues of identity and attitudes towards democracy and the German polity in east and west. In view of the economic difficulties that the Berlin Republic has experienced, particularly the high unemployment rates in the east, this chapter will add a dimension that is very often neglected in discussions about the Berlin Republic’s new identity. It will argue that the emerging ‘democracy of want’ is very different from the economically successful Bonn Republic and will examine the impact of this on attitudes towards German democracy. Chapters 4 and 5 will examine how the identity of the Berlin Republic has transformed itself on the international stage. Chapter 4 will first outline West Germany’s traditional role in Europe. It will show how important European integration was for West Germany’s post-war development following moral, military and economic bankruptcy after the Second World War and the Holocaust but in particular for the realisation of German unity. It will also address the way Europe offered West Germans a highly welcome alternative to an identification with the discredited German nation in the aftermath of the Third Reich. The chapter will then contrast the way West German elites and the population at large were exemplary in their enthusiasm for European integration between 1949 and 1990 with the more pragmatic and less idealist approach that emerged in the 1990s. It will also demonstrate the way the Berlin Republic shows much less reluctance to express its national interest on the European stage at the same time as showing more willingness to exercise leadership. Like national identity as expressed in the domestic context, West Germany’s foreign policy identity was strongly influenced by the legacy of the Holocaust and the Second World War. It was constrained

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by the pressures of the bipolar world as well as restrictions imposed by the Allies. Domestically, its scope was restricted by the norms and values which had emerged in the aftermath of the Second World War and which dominated the normative and ideational environment in which decisions were made. These norms and values shaped the public and political discourse regarding Germany’s international role in general as well as Germany’s foreign policy in particular. Chapter 5 will show how Germany’s foreign policy identity has left behind selflimitation and modesty – its key characteristics during the lifetime of the Bonn Republic – and has moved towards increasing assertiveness and a much more participatory approach to international affairs, as evidenced, for example, in initiatives aimed at obtaining a permanent seat for Germany on the UN Security Council.

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1 German National Identity and the Nazi Past

In contrast to what the term ‘hour zero’ to describe the end of the Second World War tries to insinuate, in many ways the 8 May 1945 did not mark a new beginning for Germany. It marked a beginning in the midst of the total destruction brought on by a world war which had been started by Germany and had ended in its unconditional surrender, foreign occupation and eventually, the foundation of two German states which – as the Cold War evolved – became ever more tightly integrated into the respective spheres of influence of the two superpowers. In view of the crimes committed under Nazi rule, in particular the attempt to eradicate European Jewry, Germany also faced complete and utter moral bankruptcy. The result was that not only the immediate aftermath of the defeat but also subsequent decades were deeply influenced by the legacy of the Third Reich. This became particularly obvious regarding questions of national identity. In view of the centrality of the role of the past in any construction of national identity, the key question was how to integrate crimes as incomprehensible as those committed in Hitler’s Germany into the self-understanding of the German nation after 1945. As public debates or, at times, the lack of them have shown, at different times the two Germanies found different ways to ‘deal with’ this past. In view of the unspeakable nature of the crimes, even the term coined to describe the debates about this historical legacy, Vergangenheitsbewältigung (‘coming to terms with the past’), was inadequate. Considering the scale and the nature of the crimes, what could or should any ‘coming to terms with the past’ possibly look like? And what would the end point of this process be? Would an 17

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end point not mean that the Holocaust would be consigned to oblivion? And does the term itself not also suggest too much emphasis on, and maybe even empathy with, the perpetrators struggling with the memory of their crimes at the expense of a focus on the victims? In fact, does the term ‘a past that has not been overcome’ (unbewältigte Vergangenheit) not even suggest a role reversal of victims and perpetrators since its psychological use usually refers to people who have experienced trauma and who are trying to return to normal life after having overcome their traumatic experience, as Harald Welzer has suggested?1 Notwithstanding this, however, both Germanies – observed by the international community – more or, more often, less adequately ‘dealt’ with a past that has – in spite of numerous attempts to consign it to history – not only remained very present in post-war German history but which – with increasing temporal distance and particularly since the 1990s – has also become part of global memory. Even though there has always been a broad consensus which supported Adorno’s dictum that Auschwitz should never be allowed to repeat itself, German history since 1945 was, at least until recently, characterised by disagreements regarding the role this historical legacy should play in the nation’s consciousness. During the period of Germany’s division, the two German states responded in fundamentally different ways to this challenge. Whereas the GDR attributed a central role to the concept of anti-fascism and subsumed the historical legacy under this heading, the West German state – at least once it had started to face up to the past – was largely torn between two diametrically opposed forces consisting of those who wanted to make this chapter of German history a central component of German national identity and those who wanted to consign it to history. Even though nowadays there are what Olick has referred to as ‘glib references to the “German model” of transitional justice’,2 the following section will show that for most of the lifetime of the two German states, the Vergangenheitsbewältigung practised was a far cry from what could be described as being of model character.

Reluctant regret: The two Germanies after the Holocaust By employing the concept of anti-fascism, the official discourse in East Germany found a convenient solution to the question of the past.

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German National Identity and the Nazi Past 19

It provided a useful tool to distance the GDR from Germany’s Nazi past but also from its current capitalist ‘other’, the Federal Republic of Germany. Both the National Socialist regime as well as the Second World War were interpreted as having emerged out of capitalism and a renunciation of capitalism – in the form of anti-fascism – was seen as key to the GDR’s process of ‘coming to terms with its past’. Antifascism was also used to legitimise communist rule. The new reality of the bipolar bloc system which was at the heart of the division of Germany and the fact that West Germany was the legal successor of the Third Reich and a central part of the capitalist bloc further reinforced the impression that the Nazi past was a West German matter. It also made the Bonn Republic the target of East German accusations that it had failed to confront its Nazi past. The GDR, on the other hand, portrayed itself to be in the tradition of the resistance fighters; it seemed, in fact, ‘that Hitler himself had been a West German’.3 This is not to say that outside the GDR’s official discourse there were no attempts at all to come to terms with the National Socialist past in a more genuine and differentiated way. Especially the immediate post-war period was characterised by a plurality in the memory culture of the east with protestant pastors, representatives of the resistance of 20 July and members of Jewish communities organising commemorative events together.4 It was only during the second phase which lasted until the mid-1950s that anti-fascism was increasingly used to turn complex historical developments into an ‘ahistorical essence’ which could be instrumentalised at will.5 The period between 1955 and 1989 was very much characterised by stasis and the view of history and the mechanisms adopted to deal with it during the second phase, in particular anti-fascism, dominated official memory.6 Hence, for most of the lifetime of the GDR the official discourse made no serious attempts to acknowledge the Nazi past as part of the GDR’s history and identity with the result that questions of culpability remained largely unaddressed. This was publicly conceded in a meeting of the GDR parliament, the Volkskammer (‘People’s Chamber’), shortly after the fall of the Wall in 1989. Reducing the lessons of the Holocaust past to anti-fascism meant that its unique nature went unappreciated and differentiated discussions of questions of responsibility and guilt and their moral implications did not take place. As Bernhard Giesen has pointed out, ‘with the state claiming a monopoly on anti-Fascist representation, the

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Holocaust identity faded as a moral project. State-carrying rhetoric and official forms of speech trivialized the Holocaust identity, and took away its chance of setting socialist reality under tension’.7 The claim that fascism was the result of the capitalist economic system also enabled the GDR to integrate mid-level functionaries and the large number of Germans who had shown tacit approval since their souls had now been saved by communism,8 thus turning every citizen of the GDR into a ‘victor of history’. Even when the sites of former concentration camps were opened as memorials, as in the case of Buchenwald in 1958 and Sachsenhausen in 1961, speeches by the political leadership (Otto Grotewohl in Buchenwald and Walter Ulbricht in Sachsenhausen) focused on the ‘heroes of antifascist struggle’ and the ‘victims of fascism’ in general with fallen soldiers receiving more attention in the speeches than Jewish victims.9 A break with the past in normative terms accompanied by the continued presence of its former supporters also characterised the early years of the Federal Republic. Most Germans considered themselves to have been victims of Hitler and his criminal gang, an interpretation which seemed to be confirmed by the Nuremberg Trials which focussed on the Nazi leadership. Having reduced the responsibility for the atrocities to a small number of criminals around Hitler – the commonly used phrase ‘crimes committed in the name of the German people’ encapsulates the kind of self-exculpation that took place after the war very well – the politics of the past of the early years of the Bonn Republic largely consisted of granting amnesty and integrating former supporters of the Third Reich and in normative terms, a rejection of National Socialism.10 Whereas the intellectuals of the new Republic ‘gained their collective identity by focussing upon the nation’s still-unaddressed past’11 in terms of questions of responsibility and guilt, Auschwitz was blanked out by the population at large. Regarding German crimes between 1933 and 1945, the early post-war period was characterised by what Hermann Lübbe termed ‘communicative silence’.12 This is also illustrated by the lack of institutionalised commemoration in these early years.13 In contrast to the demands of the intellectuals, that the ‘question of guilt’14 had to be addressed for rehabilitation ever to become possible, in the 1950s the majority of Germans concentrated on their own suffering as expellees, bombing raid victims and prisoners of war. As Moeller has pointed out,

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German National Identity and the Nazi Past 21

reinventing themselves as a community of victims allowed the emergence of a collective identity in post-war West Germany.15 The silence over the destruction of European Jewry which at that time ‘did not even have a name yet’16 was accompanied by ‘a reflexive rejection of guilt’ (reflexartige Schuldabwehr)17 and ‘went hand-in-hand with noisy lamentations of German victimhood’.18 The lack of critical self-reflection and acknowledgement of responsibility that was to characterise the early post-war period became clear already early on. An intelligence officer in the Psychological Warfare Division of the US army, who arrived as part of the Normandy landings in 1944, was interrogating Germans as more and more parts of western Europe were liberated by the Allied forces. The aim of the exercise was to understand their reactions, motives, attitudes, hopes and expectations, in short to learn something of ‘the German mentality’.19 Two months into his investigations, Padover made the following observation: We’ve been at work for two months now, we’ve talked to a lot of people, we’ve asked a lot of questions, and never, never once, did we find a Nazi. They’re all anti-Nazi. They’re all against Hitler. They’ve always been against Hitler. So what does that mean? It means that Hitler – Hitler alone – without help or encouragement from anybody in Germany, started the war, licked all Europe, overran most of European Russia, murdered five million Jews, starved to death six or eight million Poles and Russians, set up four hundred concentration camps, created the biggest army in Europe, and made the trains run on schedule. It takes a pretty good man to do all that by himself. I know only of two men in all the world capable of such a feat, and the other one is Superman.20 The refusal of Germans to acknowledge what had happened and the absence of guilt was also felt by Hannah Arendt. After having been forced to emigrate because of her Jewish background during the Third Reich, during a visit in 1950 she was struck by the atmosphere in Germany. The nightmare of destruction and horror was felt and talked about nowhere less than in Germany, Arendt observed. Germans wrote postcards to each other of churches and other buildings which did not exist any more and Arendt described a general

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lack of emotion which, she thought, was ‘only the most conspicuous external symptom of a deeply rooted, tenacious and sometimes brutal refusal to face what actually happened and come to terms with it’.21 This was best illustrated by what she described as a ‘simple experiment’ which consisted of her pointing out her German Jewish origin at the beginning of a conversation with a German stranger. What followed an embarrassing pause was not a question as to where she had gone or what had happened to her family but a flood of stories about German suffering, according to Arendt.22 After the silence of the early years regarding questions of responsibility and guilt and a focus on Germans’ own suffering, it was the 1960s that provided a turning point. Although all the facts were known after the war – after all Eugen Kogon had published his comprehensive study as early as 194623 – it took a long time for these facts to enter public debate and consciousness, in particular with regard to their moral implications. Some high-profile trials such as the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961 and the Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt between 1963 and 1965 started to shift the attention away from the topic of German suffering and on to the crimes Germans had committed between 1933 and 1945. An increase in far right activities also reminded the German public as well as the international community that the German past might in fact have survived in its most detestable form. Some highly symbolic acts in the 1970s also indicated that times had changed. The most powerful of these acts was probably when, in 1970, German Chancellor Willy Brandt fell to his knees at the monument to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising which had been brutally put down by the Germans and involved the killing of thousands. The 1970s were also the decade when commemoration started to become institutionalised and more attention was directed towards the question of guilt. In the same year as Brandt fell to his knees, at last showing the repentance at least of the West German political leadership, the Bundestag for the first time commemorated the end of the war in Europe on the 8 May. Five years later, in his speech on 8 May 1975, Federal President Walter Scheel called the 8 May a day of liberation from war, murder, suppression and barbarity. In his speech, Scheel also emphasised that Germans had been unable to liberate themselves but relied on liberation from the outside. Significantly, Scheel also made clear that Hitler had not been an inescapable fate

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German National Identity and the Nazi Past 23

but that he had been elected. Scheel pleaded for an approach that accepted the burden of German history and expressed the view that pride to be German could only be regained if the ‘oppressive weight of our history’ was acknowledged.24 The 1980s saw the 40th anniversary of the end of the war and was a decade of contrasts regarding the Federal Republic’s relationship with its Nazi past. President Richard von Weizsäcker continued the line Scheel had taken before him by making it quite clear that the 8 May 1945 meant liberation rather than defeat, even though, as Habermas pointed out in this context, this reflected a ‘retrospective recognition’ rather than a ‘contemporary experience’.25 Weizsäcker also addressed the question of widespread responsibility by acknowledging that in addition to the crimes that were committed there were many people, also of his generation, who were young and not involved in the planning and execution of events but who had tried to ignore what was happening.26 In contrast to Richard von Weizsäcker’s was Helmut Kohl’s approach which dominated official memory in the 1980s. Kohl, a trained historian with a doctorate in history, was largely perceived as pursuing a historical revisionism which aimed at the rehabilitation of Germany with regard to its Nazi past at the expense of addressing the issue of culpability. Kohl was convinced that a ‘normalisation’ of Germany was in Germany’s best interests and he wanted to do everything possible to achieve this. For him, an important part of this process was reconciliation with former enemies. Kohl’s emphasis on war memory and reconciliation arguably happened at the expense of commemorating Auschwitz and what it stood for, the Holocaust, however. When Kohl spoke of the ‘mercy of a late birth’ (Gnade der späten Geburt) in his speech to the Knesset on 24 January 1984, it was interpreted to mean that later generations did not have to face up to the consequences of the Holocaust since they had not been actively involved at the time. In particular, Kohl’s efforts to arrange a visit of US President Ronald Reagan to the war cemetery at Bitburg, where not only German and American Second World War soldiers were buried but also members of the Waffen SS, were greeted with a storm of protests in Germany and the United States. It was largely seen as an attempt to equalise victims and perpetrators with the presence of the US President providing the legitimisation for this equalisation.

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In his memoirs, Kohl insisted that the event was intended as ‘a persuasive gesture of reconciliation with our former enemies at the graves of the dead of a barbaric war, that was to demonstrate that our people had learnt from history’.27 What had been quite successful in terms of its political symbolism in 1984 when Kohl and French President Mitterrand met at Verdun to commemorate the victims of both wars, turned into a PR disaster in 1985. Even though Reagan’s visit to Bitburg went ahead – in view of the extensive criticism the American President faced over the affair the German Chancellor had offered Reagan the option to cancel it28 – the discussion that accompanied it was far from conciliatory. Although Kohl might have succeeded in dragging the American President into a gesture of reconciliation, the event seriously alienated victims of the Holocaust and their representatives. The visit to Bitburg resulted in representatives of Jewish organisations refusing to take part in the commemorative event organised at the concentration camp in Bergen-Belsen which was also to be part of President Reagan’s official programme. In the same year, Kohl made more negative headlines when the Homeland Society of Silesia (Schlesische Landsmannschaft), at whose annual meeting he was planning to speak, proposed to hold its meeting under the motto ‘40 Years [after the] Expulsions – Silesia remains Ours’. Faced with public pressure, the Society changed its motto to ‘Silesia remains our Future in a Europe of Free People’, but the impression was reinforced that Kohl was part of a larger revisionist circle if not movement. The impression that historical revisionism was increasingly gaining a following was further strengthened by Michael Stürmer, a historian and political adviser to Helmut Kohl, who described Germany as a ‘country without history’ (ein geschichtsloses Land). What Stürmer meant, of course, was that Germany was a country without the right kind of history, that is one that would allow a positive identification with the German nation. In Stürmer’s view, Germans needed to look at their history prior to the Third Reich for their historical identity since ‘in the long term, no people can live without a historical identity’.29 Stürmer’s remarks – made in the context of the so-called historians’ dispute (Historikerstreit), which dominated public and academic debates in 1986–87 – illustrated the fundamental difficulty West Germany faced regarding the construction of national identity after

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German National Identity and the Nazi Past 25

1945. Should Germany’s history between 1933 and 1945 provide the key reference point for the Federal Republic with the result that a positive identification with the German nation was henceforth impossible, or should this period be ‘historicised’ with the result that the legacy of Germany’s Nazi past lost its status as the single most important defining feature of the Federal Republic? According to left-liberal critics, ‘historicising’ the period would lead to its relativisation and the loss of singularity ascribed to it due to the scale and nature of the crimes committed, whereas conservative critics saw it as the only possibility for allowing a re-emergence of a sense of national pride. In other words, conservative historians sought to ‘draw’ the famous ‘line under the past’ (einen Schlussstrich ziehen) in order to enable Germans to develop a positive relationship with their nation, whereas Habermas and his supporters were unwavering in their belief that it was only through making Auschwitz an integral part of German national identity and facing up to the historical responsibilities resulting from it, that Germany could go forward. In Habermas’s view a liberal political culture in Germany had only been able to develop ‘because of Auschwitz’ and ‘the reflection on the incomprehensible’.30 There is no doubt that the Holocaust and the Second World War were the most important factors determining West Germany’s place in the post-war world. Collective memory was also inscribed into political institutions and prescribed to a large extent what policies and discourses were possible. It provided what has been termed the ‘basic narrative’ of the Bonn Republic whether this centrality was accepted and approved of or rejected and dismissed. The fierce debates during the Historikerstreit in the 1980s illustrated this clearly. There might have been numerous attempts to ‘draw a line’ under Germany’s Nazi past but every attempt at burying that past merely resulted in its renewed prominence in the public debate. On the eve of the fall of the Wall, the debate as to what place Germany’s Nazi past should occupy in the nation’s consciousness was as polarised as ever. Since this discussion provided the key to Germany’s selfunderstanding, it means that throughout the lifetime of the Bonn Republic, no consensus was reached as to what place the Nazi past should occupy in West Germany’s self-understanding. As the two decades since unification have shown, however, much progress has been made in this respect. German official memory discourse is now

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neither an obstacle to a positive identification with the German nation nor has Hitler been consigned to history.

Collective memory of Germany’s Nazi past since unification The question of German nationhood became very acute in the aftermath of the unexpected fall of the Wall in November 1989. Not only did the prospect of unification worry Germany’s European neighbours, in particular Britain and France, but it also caused considerable debate within the two German states. Especially left-liberal West German intellectuals spoke out strongly against German unification with one of the key arguments drawing on Germany’s Nazi past. The, at that time, leading Social Democratic politician Oskar Lafontaine, for example, declared the nation-state as ‘historically outdated’ and in a speech at the Social Democratic Party Conference in Berlin in December 1989, Günter Grass spoke out against the re-creation of a united Germany on the grounds that it had been the unitary state that had filled the history books with misery, defeat, refugees and death31 and even went as far as likening the Unification Treaty to Hitler’s Enabling Act of 1933.32 Opponents of German unification lost the argument, however, and with its quick realisation in 1990, some commentators predicted that the new Germany was likely to need a different past. Ian Kershaw, for example, suggested that ‘confining Hitler to history’ – still impossible at the time of the ‘historians’ dispute’ – had now become ‘more imaginable as a consequence of Unification’.33 As key developments since the 1990s show, however, collective memory of the Nazi period has not only become more diverse but has become also increasingly institutionalised on a national and even global scale. Holocaust centred memory in the 1990s and its challenges Two of the key debates of the 1990s did not suggest that united Germany had consigned its Nazi past to history: the discussions surrounding the ‘Crimes of the Wehrmacht’ exhibition and the Goldhagen debate. As part of a larger exhibition, the Hamburg Institute for Social Research presented an exhibition entitled ‘War of Annihilation – Crimes of the Wehrmacht between 1941 and 1944’ (Vernichtungskrieg. Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941–1944) which was

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met with considerable interest by the German public. In spite of some inaccuracies which forced the organisers to withdraw the exhibition in 1999 and launch its revised version under the title ‘Crimes of the Wehrmacht. Dimensions of a War of Annihilation 1941–1944’ in 2001, the main message of the exhibition – that the activities of the German Wehrmacht in the east were not as ‘clean’ as widely perceived in post-war Germany – brought to the forefront questions of culpability of ordinary German soldiers. The publication of Daniel Goldhagen’s book Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust in 1996 – even though the book was dismissed by German historians as conceptually and methodologically weak – was received with considerable interest rather than resentment by the wider German public. Whatever its weaknesses, its focus on the role of ordinary Germans in the Holocaust provided a new angle and challenged the still very deep-seated and dearly held belief in Germany that Germans were the first victims of Hitler and that the crimes were not committed by the German people themselves but ‘in their name’.34 The two debates contributed to the impression – as indeed a number of scholars at the end of the 1990s suggested – that united Germany had at last come to terms with its past and was facing up to the responsibility of its historical legacy.35 Both debates suggested that at last not only the official discourse acknowledged German responsibility but also that there was growing and more widespread awareness of the involvement and responsibility of ordinary Germans between 1933 and 1945. There were a number of other developments, however, which suggest that the 1990s witnessed a diversification of memory in a number of ways. At the same time as widespread culpability was acknowledged, the theme of German victimhood re-entered the public realm and challenged what had appeared to some to be a hegemonic focus on German culpability. It was suggested, for instance, that the 50th anniversary celebrations in 1995 indicated a return of the theme of German suffering: There are strong signs that the war anniversaries may prove a turning-point in German attitudes to the war, and that under pressure from outright revisionists and conventional politicians the sense of victimhood will grow further, at the expense of the

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nation’s collective conscience regarding the war which Hitler took to all of Europe. It need not be a zero-sum equation. Yet as the milestone of the fiftieth anniversary of its end is passed, the balance in favour of conscience is under challenge.36 A number of initiatives and debates in the 1990s challenged the notion of a dominant Holocaust memory and shifted the focus back to German suffering. On 7 April 1995, an appeal published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ‘8 May 1945 – Against Forgetting’ (8. Mai 1945 – Gegen das Vergessen) was initiated by Rainer Zitelmann and Klaus Rainer Röhl and served as a rejoinder to the interpretation of the 8 May 1945 as a day of liberation as Weizsäcker had suggested in his speech in 1985. The appeal was to serve as a reminder that for many Germans the 8 May had meant the beginning of new suffering and oppression in the east. The negative public reaction to this appeal showed, however, that the majority of Germans were not yet ready to foreground German victimhood once again.37 In 1998, the Walser-Bubis debate made the challenge to Holocaust centred memory, as Eric Langenbacher has called it,38 more apparent. In his acceptance speech of the prestigious peace prize awarded by the German publishers’ association (Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels), the German writer Martin Walser seemed to join the ranks of those who wanted to ‘draw a line under the past’ suggesting that everybody knew ‘our historical legacy, the everlasting shame’ and that there was not a day ‘when we’re not reproached for it’. Walser spoke of a ‘cruel duty to commemorate’ (grausamer Erinnerungsdienst) and of the ‘instrumentalisation of our disgrace for current purposes’. He expressed his deep resentment against the use of Auschwitz as a ‘moral cudgel’ and against a ritualisation of memory which was characterised by merely paying lip-service.39 Ignatz Bubis, Head of the Central Council of German Jews who had attended the ceremony reacted with indignation and accused Walser of ‘intellectual arson’. Walser’s speech and the reaction it provoked were interpreted in a number of ways. Kansteiner, for example, suggested that the public debate that followed disproved some of Walser’s allegations that Germany was suffering from a monolithic and repressive memory culture that did not allow any alternative perceptions of German history since this debate was characterised by a wide spectrum of affirmative as well as disapproving comments. Quite to the contrary,

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Kansteiner argued, the ‘open discussion following Walser’s speech spoke to the relative maturity of Germany’s democratic public sphere’.40 Interpreted in a less benevolent light, it can be seen as the beginning of a paradigmatic change that was taking place in Germany’s memory culture and that constituted a serious challenge to Holocaust centred memory that appeared to have been achieved in the 1990s. At the very least, the speech can be seen as a serious challenge to the assumption that Germany had at last found a way to ‘come to terms’ with its past and face up to its responsibility. Roman Herzog made this point in a speech entitled ‘The Future of Memory’ on 27 January 1999 when he underlined the importance of memory and asserted that recent debates had shown once again that Germany had not yet found a ‘sustainable form of memory’ (eine bleibende Form des Erinnerns). At the same time, Herzog emphasised its importance: ‘no nation can exist without thorough knowledge of its history’.41 The 1990s increasingly also saw the theme of victimhood appear in literature. In 1993, Walter Kempowski published the first of four parts of Echolot, a collection of documents such as diaries, letters, postcards and photos which illustrated the life of Germans during the Second World War and contained much material that illustrated German suffering. Novels by Dieter Forte (the trilogy: Das Muster, 1992, Der Junge mit den blutigen Schuhen, 1995 and In der Erinnerung, 1998) were dealing with the trauma of bombing raids and in his lectures On the National History of Destruction (1997) W.G. Sebald claimed that post-war German literature had failed to address the suffering caused by Allied bombing campaigns appropriately. In addition to these precursors to the ‘Germans as victims’ discourse which surfaced shortly afterwards, there were several other developments which had a significant impact on the reception of the Holocaust in Germany and led to a considerable degree of relativisation and even de-nationalisation of its memory: notions of a ‘double past’ in the wake of German unification, the increasing institutionalisation of Holocaust memory and the parallel development of its internationalisation, that is, Europeanisation and even globalisation. Notions of a ‘double past’ that emerged in the context of the communist legacy in the former GDR very much challenged the view of the singularity of the Holocaust. The concept of totalitarianism provided a convenient way to subsume both German pasts under

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one heading, thus in effect equalising them. This turned out to be a much more effective tool to relativise the National Socialist past than any argument brought forward by the national-conservative camp during the ‘historians’ dispute’ in the 1980s. Notions of a ‘red Holocaust’ which emerged in the discussions following the publication of the Black Book of Communism in France in 1997 did more than had hitherto been possible in terms of relativising Germany’s Nazi past. Setting it on an equal footing with communism allowed its proponents to deny the singularity of Auschwitz thus further contributing to Germany’s ‘normalisation’. As Habermas put it: During the so-called historians’ debate that took place some three years prior to reunification, it was still possible to hold off prominent figures’ attempts to ‘normalize’ a past that ‘refuses to go away’, or bring it into an ‘over-arching national historical context’. Today, hardly a single voice is raised against industrious historians who emphasize, apparently without qualms, the continuity of the Bismarck Reich, or who reckon up, on the other side of the ledger, the measures taken by National Socialism to moderate its mass crimes. ‘De-Stasi-fication’ is seen as a form of ‘de-Nazification’ and tends to foster leveling comparisons between the first and the second dictatorship [ ... ].42 The 1990s also saw an increasing institutionalisation of Holocaust memory partly caused by the gradual disappearance of the eyewitnesses or what has been described as the transition from ‘communicative memory’ to ‘cultural memory’.43 As Roman Herzog said in his speech commemorating the victims of National Socialism on 19 January 1996, ‘even the most massive barbarity will shrink to an anonymous event which is gradually doused in the soft light of sober description’, which made institutionalised memory increasingly necessary.44 The Federal President introduced 27 January as National Holocaust Memorial Day in Germany in 1996. Illustrating increasing institutionalisation but also globalisation of Holocaust memory in the new millennium, the General Assembly of the UN passed a resolution in November 2005 which designated the date as an annual International Day of Commemoration for Holocaust Victims. These attempts to institutionalise commemoration inadvertently also meant – as Walser had rightly suggested in his speech – that

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Holocaust memory became increasingly ritualistic. As Friederike Eigler has observed, this ritualisation denotes ‘a growing disconnect between public forms of commemorating the victims of National Socialism and personal forms of memory and mourning’ with the result that forgetting rather than remembering is fostered by these ritualised forms of commemoration.45 At the same time, Holocaust memory became increasingly characterised by its international character. Commonly used expressions such as ‘humankind’s darkest hour’, the ‘world’s cruellest episode in history’ or the ‘modern era’s greatest calamity’ to describe the Holocaust illustrate the way it started to become ‘adopted’ by the world. The memory of the destruction of European Jewry in Nazi Germany became part of a European or even global memory since a politics of universal human rights and a yardstick for democracy can be derived from it. It provides ‘a moral touchstone in an age of uncertainty and the absence of master ideological narratives’.46 Swedish Prime Minister Persson, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the President of the United States Bill Clinton decided in 1998 to set up a task force to promote international cooperation on Holocaust education, remembrance and research. The declared purpose of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust which resulted from this initiative and held its conference in January 2000 made this explicit: passing on testimony of the Holocaust and giving support to education and research ‘on this dark chapter of 20th century history ... should mean that we will be better equipped to combat racism, anti-Semitism and intolerance as they manifest themselves in modern-day society. We must never take democracy for granted’.47 Since this ‘cosmopolitan memory’ by its very nature ‘transcends ethnic and national boundaries’,48 it has also had an effect on German national memory of the Holocaust. Whether indeed it was a dual strategy by Germany, as Levy and Sznaider have argued, to centre the Holocaust as an integral part of German national history at the same time as decentring it by turning the Holocaust into a European event is debatable.49 The outcome, however, is quite clear. As a result of this globalisation, German Holocaust memory has become de-nationalised, maybe even de-Germanised. It is ‘the lessons’ that the Holocaust has taught that are seen to be important, rather than where it originated and who was responsible. The

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commitment to shared values as expressed in a global Holocaust memory for Germans thus conveniently overcomes the distinction between perpetrators and victims. All in all, the 1990s were a ‘mixed bag’ which contained clear signs of an acceptance of Germany’s historical legacy but which also witnessed the emergence of new developments such as significant attempts to relativise the Nazi past, institutionalise and ritualise it and also the precursors of a return to the theme of German suffering which then gathered momentum in the new millennium. Towards the end of the 1990s, the term ‘normalisation’ also became increasingly accepted in descriptive as well as prescriptive terms: as a concept as well as a way ahead for Germany. Until then, it had usually stood for the desire to bury the German past. The change of government in 1998 showed that it was possible for Germany to come out of Hitler’s shadow and become ‘normal’ without actually burying the past. Beyond 1998: The end of the ‘long’ post-war period The advent of a red-green coalition in 1998 and the generational change that accompanied it contributed significantly to the ‘normalisation’ of Germany. The new generation of political leaders was safe from being suspected of promoting the relativisation of Germany’s Nazi past. Their credentials lay with the protest movements of the 1960s and they were thus traditionally associated with questioning the parents’ generation and their involvement in the Nazi regime. The fact that their biographies put them beyond reproach regarding the pursuit of German nationalism liberated them from previous narrow and partisan views regarding German national identity and allowed them more room for manoeuvre. The way the red-green government ‘dealt’ with Germany’s Nazi past integrated two approaches which had so far belonged to two opposing political camps and had thus been mutually exclusive: more confidence based on a positive identification with the German nation, traditionally associated with the political right of centre, as well as an unambiguous acknowledgement of the responsibility arising from Germany’s Nazi past, a longestablished priority of the liberal left.50 Right at the beginning of his chancellorship, Gerhard Schröder made his approach to Germany’s past and the role it should play in united Germany’s national consciousness very clear. He was planning

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to represent a Germany that was ‘less inhibited’ and ‘in a positive sense maybe even more German’, he explained in a talk show in November 1998.51 For a Social Democratic German Chancellor of the generation of 1968 to promote being ‘more German’ in a ‘positive sense’ was something quite new in post-war German history. Positive expressions of German national identity had so far either been impossible because of Auschwitz, as the liberal left had traditionally argued, or were based on the assumption that Auschwitz and the Nazi past had to be ‘historicised’ to enable a positive identification with the German nation to re-emerge. Schröder dissolved this tension by explicitly and unambiguously asserting that Germany had to face up to the responsibilities arising from its Nazi history at the same time as promoting a more confident identification with the German nation. Talking of the ‘self-confidence of a grown-up nation’ which felt neither inferior nor superior towards others, in his government declaration of 10 November 1998, Schröder depicted Germany as a nation which faced up to its history and which also acknowledged the responsibilities arising from it.52 Schröder explained the role he envisaged for Germany’s Nazi past in more detail in an interview in 1999 in which he suggested that for future generations an acknowledgement of Germany’s past should be considered as empowering rather than constraining: ‘Does the readiness of a new generation to engage [with the German past], not to forget, not also create an opportunity to represent one’s own interests in a more uninhibited manner?’53 Schröder thus promoted Germany’s ‘normalisation’ but – in contrast to previous efforts in this respect – it was not to happen at the expense of Holocaust centred memory. According to Schröder, the picture of Willy Brandt on his knees symbolised German repentance and meant ‘never again’ but he considered it also a symbol for the fact that ‘we have to accept our past in order to be able to win our future’.54 Two initiatives demonstrated the acceptance of Holocaust centred memory in official discourse and government policy very well: the completion of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin and the settlement reached regarding the compensation for forced labour. Lea Rosh, a German publicist, first proposed a memorial of this kind in the late 1980s and – after ten years of controversial and fierce debates – with a large majority the Bundestag decided in favour of

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the monument on 25 June 1999. On 19,000 square metres right in the centre of Berlin, near the Brandenburg Gate, the memorial was officially opened on 10 May 2005. It consists of over 2700 tilting concrete steles each one of them having a unique shape and size. The site is open in all directions and visitors can enter from any point along its sides and make their way through it in any way they like. It does not contain any plaques or inscriptions since its architect Peter Eisenman had strongly rejected the idea of putting names on the stones. In his opinion, this would have turned the memorial into a huge graveyard. Underneath it there is a ‘place of information’ which offers concrete information about the fate of individual Jews under the Nazis. The construction of the memorial caused a lot of discussion and debate. It is unique in the sense that – in contrast to other memorials which tend to commemorate positive events in a nation’s history – it commemorates German crimes. Its architecture has led some to argue that it was too abstract and lacked a clear didactic message. It was also criticised for being exclusively dedicated to the murdered Jews. Because of its abstract nature and its purpose not being evident without relevant information, it was also suggested that it would become part of city life to an extent that its intended message was lost. Its abstract nature allows interpretation and but also requires some background knowledge and the way it will be integrated into city life cannot be predicted. Eisenman himself said he could imagine people having picnics on the slabs. Inappropriate as this might be, it has actually happened. In contrast to what its critics had described as a ‘nightmare the size of a football pitch’ and the ‘monumentalisation of disgrace’,55 only shortly after its completion, the memorial seemed to be incorporated into city life without conveying much sense of Germany’s historical crimes, as the following description illustrates: In the weeks and months after the memorial opened on 12 May 2005, it quickly became apparent that the large site, with its 2700 steles, could serve many different purposes. As expected, international dignitaries flocked to the site, neo-Nazis applied unappetizing graffiti, and the small exhibit on the premises attracted an impressive number of visitors. But the memorial also appeals to urban dwellers with very little interest in history. To the

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consternation of some commentators and, presumably, the furtive satisfaction of the memorial’s two full-time guards, children and adolescents play hide-and-seek and jump from stele to stele while some adults appreciate the memorial as a great rendezvous and picnic site.56 Thus intent and reception differ widely. The key message of the initiative – Germany demonstrating a clear, visible and unambiguous acknowledgement of its culpability – is obviously not received as such. It has become the place Schröder envisaged when he suggested in a TV discussion that it should be somewhere Germans ‘like to go’ (gerne hingehen).57 The other initiative which is said to demonstrate the acceptance of German culpability was the compensation for forced labour which was initiated under the red-green government. After the London Debt Conference of 1953 had postponed the issue of compensation for victims of National Socialism until a peace treaty had been agreed, German unification opened up the debate again and the Two-Plus-Four Treaty paved the way for this issue to be resolved at last. The Foundation ‘Memory, Responsibility and the Future’ (Entschädigungsfonds: Erinnerung, Verantwortung, Zukunft) was launched in August 2000 and by and large finished paying out compensation to former forced labourers and other victims of the NS regime in June 2007. In total, the Foundation paid out 4.4 billion euros to the surviving 1.7 million victims, most of them living in the successor states of the former Soviet Union. Depending on the category, each victim received between 2500 and 7500 euros. Even though the Foundation for the compensation of forced labour is often seen as a voluntary initiative of German industry and the redgreen government which jointly provided the funds, it was largely a result of the legal and political pressure which had accumulated through class-action lawsuits in the United States.58 It was certainly not an easy process. As the German representative of the Jewish Claims Conference, Georg Heuberger, pointed out, it was a bartering process and every concession had to be fought for. While the official discourse and government policy – as evidenced in these two initiatives – suggested that Holocaust centred memory had at last become embedded and that Germany accepted responsibility without any ifs or buts, the ‘Germans as victims’ discourse

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became very prominent once more at the beginning of the new millennium.59 In contrast to the 1990s when the public response to initiatives like the ‘Appeal Against Forgetting’ (Aufruf gegen das Vergessen) was overwhelmingly negative, the ‘Germans as victims’ theme now entered the mainstream. Its most prominent contributors were not the usual revisionist suspects but authors like Günter Grass – largely considered as the ‘conscience of the nation’ – and Jörg Friedrich who had previously written about the way Nazi criminals had been inadequately dealt with in West Germany. The new discourse concentrated on two areas in particular: firstly, the history of Germans as victims of the expulsions from eastern and central Europe (Vertriebenengeschichte) and secondly, the debates surrounding Germans as victims of the Allied bombing campaigns towards the end of the war (Bombenkriegsdebatte). The omnipresence the theme gained in literary, historical and public discourses was extraordinary.60 The assertiveness with which an acknowledgement of German suffering was claimed and the way cause and effect were not always acknowledged were remarkable. When the Queen visited Germany in November 2004, the tabloid paper Bild demanded an apology for ‘Dresden’. Shortly afterwards, in January 2005, one month before the 60th anniversary of the bombing raids, the far right member of the regional parliament in Saxony, Jürgen W. Gansel, described the bombing raids on Dresden as a ‘Bombenholocaust’. Gansel equalised Allied warfare and German crimes just like Jörg Friedrich when he described the bunkers underneath the houses hit by fire bombs as ‘crematoria’.61 The red-green government continued to support Holocaust centred memory and did not explicitly encourage the re-emerging focus on German suffering. Gerhard Schröder and his Foreign Secretary Joschka Fischer even openly cautioned against over-emphasising German victimhood. Schröder expressed his view that he considered it necessary to decisively oppose any attempts which tried to turn the perpetrators discourse into a victims discourse thus attempting to relativise Nazi crimes.62 Joschka Fischer also warned against a relativisation of German guilt through a focus on German suffering. In the discussions about a Centre against Expulsions, Fischer made it quite clear that he thought that it was important to consider what led to German suffering. Rather than focussing on what others had

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done to the Germans, the focus should be on what the Germans had done to themselves. In no uncertain terms, he also dismissed the claim that German suffering used to be a taboo. Being a descendent of a German ethnic minority whose family left Hungary in 1946, he said: ‘A taboo? Quite to the contrary! My childhood was full of these stories of expulsion, occupation, nights of bombing raids and the meetings of the expellees.’63 The 60th anniversaries in 2004 and 2005 – which Schröder described as ‘the end of a long post-war period’64 – provided evidence of some more changes regarding Germany’s relationship with its past as well as its international status. Germany had clearly come a long way since 1985 when Weizsäcker suggested in his much noted speech on 8 May that ‘we Germans commemorate this day on our own ... The 8 May was a day of liberation. ... We have certainly no reason to participate in the victory celebrations today.’65 Schröder clearly had a different stance on this and took part in the commemorative events in Moscow on 8 May 2005 on the side of the victors. In spite of having explicitly dismissed the renewed focus on German suffering in literary, historical and public debates at home, he contributed to the victims discourse himself. In his speech he acknowledged – in response to what the Russian President had pointed out in his speech – that no other country had paid as high a price as the people of the former Soviet Union for the victory over Nazi Germany. He then very quickly moved on to German victimhood, however. What appeared to be an effort to disassociate ‘his country’ from the ‘Nazis’, he said: ‘But my country, too, has suffered indescribably under the war started by the Nazis.’ And he continued: ‘At a personal level, let me add, dear Mr President: I think of your mother, for example, who escaped death only by a hair’s breadth during the blockade of Leningrad. Allow me to remind you also that in this war my father fell, too.’66 The reaction – or rather the lack of it – following this statement in Russia as well as Germany was telling and seemed to indicate a growing acceptance of the paradox that ‘Germans’ were victims of the ‘Nazis’, too. With the reference to his own biography, Schröder provided an excellent example of the relationship between cognitive and affective or official and private memory.67 Whereas he clearly and unambiguously acknowledged German – well, at least the Nazis’ – responsibility at the cognitive level, his personal memory was

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dominated by German victimhood. In Caen, too, Schröder moved to private memory to illustrate German suffering, not just of the war generation but also of his own generation that was born during the war: ‘Nobody will ever forget the terrible history of the Hitler regime. My generation grew up in its shadow: My family has found the grave of my father, a soldier who fell in Romania, only four years ago. I was never allowed to meet my father.’68 Schröder is not the only high-profile politician who blurred the distinction between suffering caused by the Germans and German suffering. In May 2005, in a commemorative event in the Bundestag on the 60th anniversary of the end of the war, Federal President Horst Köhler declared ‘we are mourning all of Germany’s victims – victims of violence which originated from Germany, and also victims of violence which struck back at Germany. We mourn all the victims because we want to be fair to all peoples, also our own.’ And he continued: We commemorate the millions who died as prisoners of war in Germany and the millions who were carried off into forced labour in Germany. We commemorate over a million compatriots who died as prisoners of war elsewhere and the hundreds of thousands of German girls and women who were carried off into forced labour in the Soviet Union. We commemorate the suffering of German refugees and expellees, of raped women and of the victims of the air raids against German civilians.69 Schröder even took to rewriting German defeat and declared Germans to have been victors, too, since unconditional surrender in 1945 was the key stepping stone – at least in the western part – for a democratic Germany. At the French-German D-Day commemorations in Caen in 2004, Schröder talked of a ‘liberation of Europe’ thereby conveniently dissolving the distinction between those parts of Europe which were home to the oppressors and those parts which fell victim to them. In a newspaper article commemorating the end of the war, Schröder made this very explicit. Taking the notion of 8 May as a liberation for Germany a significant step further, he asserted that ‘the Allied victory was not only a victory over Germany but, above all, a victory for Germany, a day of liberation.’70 While the distinction between victims and perpetrators and victors and the defeated became increasingly blurred under Schröder’s

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chancellorship, German political elites looked increasingly towards positive elements in German history. Already in 1995, in his speech on the 50th anniversary of the end of the war, Roman Herzog – after having acknowledged guilt and responsibility – also pointed out (West) Germany’s positive achievements. He described the 8 May as a day on which ‘a gate to the future was pushed open’. After acknowledging the victims of the Germans as well as German victims and the role that Hitler as well as many Germans played in the Holocaust and the destruction of Europe, Herzog focussed on the positive things that followed the 8 May 1945, that is, reconciliation at elite level as well as at a broader societal level, Western integration and American support in the form of CARE parcels. The German President also listed the achievements of Germany and the Germans after 1945: reconstruction, the economic miracle, the integration of refugees on a large scale and Germans eventually adopting ‘the spirit’ of Western democracy and human rights.71 In his inaugural speech on 1 July 2004, President Köhler also struck an upbeat note with regard to the positive achievements and even linked them to ‘love of the fatherland’: Notwithstanding our current difficulties, the Basic Law and our social market economy represent a particularly successful and peaceful phase of our country’s history [ ... ]. I myself am a member of the generation that experienced the Federal Republic as a unique success story, from the reconciliation with our neighbours to the economic miracle and ultimately reunification. These are all great historic achievements and good reasons to have confidence in ourselves. And in my eyes, they are good reasons to love our country and homeland.72 In his speech on 6 June 2004 in Caen, Schröder also emphasised the ‘new Germany’ and its positive achievements: ‘It is not the old Germany of these sinister years that I am representing. My country has found the way back into the circle of the civilised community of nations. The way to a successful and stable democracy has been long.’73 In his speech to the German Bundestag on 8 May 2005, President Köhler clearly acknowledged German culpability. At the same time, however, he also dedicated large parts of his speech to a positive assessment of post-1945 West German history and the events

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surrounding the peaceful revolution in the GDR in 1989. Regarding the latter, he claimed that in 1989, East Germans had written ‘one of the best chapters of German history’.74 Holocaust centred memory and the memory of German suffering: Towards a new consensus? Considering the way Germany’s National Socialist past and its influence on Germany’s international role was still a key part of the political debate when the red-green coalition came to power in 1998, it is remarkable what a low profile fundamental questions regarding the place of Germany’s Nazi past have had since Angela Merkel took office in 2005. Regarding Holocaust centred memory, she has continued Schröder’s approach and has acknowledged Germany’s past and the responsibilities arising from it fully and unambiguously. In contrast to her conservative predecessor Helmut Kohl, she has not made any attempts to ‘normalise’ Germany by trying to ‘draw a line’ under its past. At the same time, and again in line with Schröder, her politics of the past does not consider the memory of the Holocaust and the responsibilities arising from it as incompatible with a positive identification with the nation. In her view, Germany’s Nazi past is irrevocably part of German memory and identity and – as she made clear in a speech at Warsaw University in 2007 – it is only through a full acceptance of this past that the future can be shaped.75 The way she has fostered Germany’s relations with Israel – largely neglected under Schröder – have made her unambiguous acknowledgement of German crimes between 1933 and 1945 particularly clear. During her visit to Jerusalem in March 2008 in her speech to the Knesset she emphasised the importance of the Shoah for Israeli-German relations and asserted that the two countries would always remain linked in a special way by the memory of the Shoah. She also explicitly endorsed the view of the singularity of the Holocaust. She expressed the opinion, however, that a mere acknowledgement of Germany’s historical legacy was not enough. On numerous occasions, she pointed out that there needed to be a link between discourse and policy and that ‘words should be followed by deeds’.76 In the case of Israel, she as well as her grand coalition’s Foreign Secretary Frank-Walter Steinmeier made it very explicit that what they described as Germany’s unique and special relations with Israel and its responsibility for Israel’s ‘right to exist’ had concrete implications for foreign policy. In a joint press

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conference with Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, for instance, Merkel described a threat to Israel to be a ‘threat to us’.77 In addition to reinforcing Holocaust centred memory and linking its continued presence not just to discourse but also to Germany’s policy options, Merkel’s government also set out to institutionalise the memory of German suffering. In their coalition agreement of 2005, the two governing parties committed themselves to ‘dealing with forced migration, flight and expulsion, both socially as well as historically’ by dedicating to it a ‘visible sign’ in Berlin. The idea for a Centre against Expulsions had been controversial right from the time when it was first put forward by expellee organisations in the late 1990s and in particular aggravated relations with Poland and the Czech Republic. The main argument against such a centre was that it would not merely commemorate German suffering but that it would emphasise German suffering at the expense of the Holocaust centred strand of German memory thus relativising German crimes by offsetting them against German suffering. As Donald Tusk, the new Polish Prime Minister who took office in 2007, pointed out, the problem was not so much that Germans wanted to commemorate their own suffering. In his view this was only problematic when the memory of German suffering happened at the expense of Holocaust centred memory and German collective responsibility. Germany’s renewed emphasis on its own suffering made ‘the past become a burden once again’, he argued.78 In spite of this criticism, Angela Merkel made it clear that she considered the commemoration of the victims of the expulsions as an important part of German memory culture and identity. She tried her best to invalidate the allegation of a relativisation of the Nazi past by emphasising that cause and effect had to be taken into account when considering the suffering of Germans. In a speech at an event commemorating 60 years of expulsions organised by the CDU/CSU parliamentary party, she pointed out that without the suffering caused by National Socialism and the Second World War – suffering caused by the Germans – the expulsions of Germans would never have happened.79 And in her speech at Warsaw University in 2007 she defended her support for a Centre against Expulsions and asserted that the commemoration of German suffering did not amount to a ‘re-interpretation of history by Germany’.80 Even in her speech on the 50th anniversary of the League of Expellees (Bund der

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Vertriebenen), she pointed out that the commemoration of German suffering was to take place in the knowledge and acceptance of Germany’s continued responsibility for the breach of civilisation of the Holocaust and the Second World War.81 This suggests that Angela Merkel aims to complement the institutionalisation of Holocaust centred memory which was realised under the Schröder governments through the completion of the Holocaust Memorial and the compensation for forced labour, with the institutionalisation of the memory of German suffering. Her rhetoric certainly does not suggest that she is a revisionist who seeks to prioritise the commemoration of German suffering at the expense of Holocaust centred memory. In fact, her politics of the past can be seen as an attempt to construct an inclusive consensus which allows for all suffering to be acknowledged albeit in a way that recognises cause and effect quite clearly. There have been events, however, which, at the very least, challenged Holocaust centred memory, or, at the most, tried to replace it with the commemoration of German victimhood. An unsavoury example, albeit allegedly accidental, was provided by Hermann Schäfer, the official in charge of the section for culture and media within the office of the Kulturstaatsminister (Minister of State for Culture). Schäfer was invited to give a speech at the opening concert ‘Gedenken Buchenwald’ (‘The Memory of Buchenwald’) of the ‘Arts Festival Weimar’ (Kunstfest Weimar) in August 2006. Schäfer, whose expertise as a historian lies with the expulsions of Germans and unaware that Buchenwald survivors were sitting in the audience, gave a speech which nearly exclusively was about German victimhood in the context of the expulsions. He hardly mentioned the victims of the Holocaust making his speech wholly inappropriate for the occasion. After the event, Schäfer claimed he had not been aware that there were concentration camp victims sitting among the audience insisting that he had been asked to speak about memory culture (Erinnerungskultur) in general. Even though he apologised for ‘the mistake’, there were accusations that the event was used as experimental ground for new debates about German history. Although it might have been a genuine mistake, it is telling that Schäfer – under the impression that he was to talk about memory culture in Germany in general – would choose to talk about German suffering. At the very least, this illustrates that Holocaust centred memory culture is being challenged.

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This impression was reinforced when in the aftermath of Schäfer’s Buchenwald speech it became public that a directive had been issued by the German Home Office in mid-August 2006 which asked all public buildings under the jurisdiction of the federal government to hoist the German flag on 2 September, the Tag der Heimat (‘Day of the Homeland’).82 Since National Socialist memorials are also public buildings under the jurisdiction of the federal government, due to what was later described as a ‘technical error’ they also received the directive in the first instance.83 The memorial site at Buchenwald and the Foundation of the Holocaust Memorial were among the recipients of the directive before it was withdrawn from NS memorial sites. Neither a ‘mistake’ nor a ‘technical error’ could be claimed when the Minister President of Baden-Württemberg, Günther Oettinger in his funeral oration for Hans Filbinger – one of his predecessors who had to resign in 1978 after having been exposed as a judge in the German navy who had sentenced deserters to death even though the war had officially already ended – described Filbinger as ‘an opponent to the National Socialist regime’ and ‘not a Nazi’. It was only after the intervention of Chancellor Angela Merkel that Oettinger withdrew this comment and apologised. Significantly, it was Merkel who was criticised for her conduct by some leading CDU politicians (e.g. Jörg Schönbohm, Home Secretary of Brandenburg) rather than Oettinger himself.

The Nazi past and German identity in the twenty-first century Perhaps the lack of fundamental questions regarding the role of Germany’s Nazi past in its national consciousness, at least in official discourse, is the best indicator that the advocates of Germany’s ‘normalisation’ have won the argument. At the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, Germany’s relationship with its past is very different from the way it was during the Historikerstreit. The polarisation of the 1980s is gone and Holocaust centred memory, at least in official discourse, is firmly entrenched and has become an accepted part of German national identity. Since it is not considered an impediment to positive expressions of German national identity anymore, demands that a line is drawn under the past have

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died down. Nearly two decades after unification, the Berlin Republic seems to have found a past that can serve once again for identificatory purposes. It does not eclipse German crimes – at least not in its official memory culture – and it acknowledges German suffering. It appears as if Holocaust centred memory by and large peacefully coexists with memory of German suffering. The way Germany has dealt with its past might have been described as exemplary but there is room for scepticism on a number of grounds. The politics of the past pursued by the Schröder and Merkel governments has no doubt been characterised by a clear acknowledgement of German crimes between 1933 and 1945. Doubts have been expressed, however, as to the genuine nature of these expressions of German culpability. The sincerity of the red-green coalition’s relationship with Holocaust centred memory has been questioned in particular. Whereas some speak of a ‘culture of contrition’,84 others note a ‘lack of concern about the Nazi past among Germany’s new political elite’85 and criticize it for its ‘casual tone towards the Nazi past’86 or even diagnose the ‘end of humility’.87 Whether these expressions of culpability are genuine or not is, of course, difficult to establish. It is much easier to identify their effect on Germany’s international role: As Wiegel has pointed out it is the irony of history that it was an aggressive acknowledgement of German culpability that made it possible for Germany in the long term to change places and move to the side of the victors.88 There is also doubt that these expressions of culpability are entrenched in society at large. Victims and eyewitnesses of the Holocaust will disappear shortly as will the generation of perpetrators. In contrast to descendents of the victims of the Germans, those of German victims have more presence in Germany. Furthermore, research has shown that there is a considerable difference between official Holocaust memory and family memory of the period. Thirdgeneration family memory emphasises German innocence and victimhood and eclipses perpetration.89 There is significant doubt therefore that Holocaust centred memory has ever really taken hold in society at large. Institutionalisation and internationalisation of Holocaust memory have further contributed to a trend that allows Germany to distance itself from its past. In spite of all expressions of culpability and responsibility by the German leadership, the German past has been

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adopted by the world community. Now, everybody is responsible for avoiding another Holocaust and Germany as the perpetrator is fading into the background. Institutionalisation of Holocaust centred memory with its focus on the victims rather than the perpetrators further supports this trend towards Germany’s exculpation and a de-Germanisation of the Nazi past. The continued force of the ‘Germans as victims’ theme casts further doubt over the possibility of a peaceful coexistence of Holocaust centred memory and the memory of German suffering. There does not appear to be an end to demands to further acknowledge German victimhood and institutionalise its memory. In 2006, two major exhibitions on expulsions were launched. In May 2006, ‘Flight, Expulsion, Integration’ was opened and, in August 2006, more controversially, ‘Forced Paths’. Erika Steinbach, President of the Federation of Expellees has repeatedly demanded the introduction of a national bank holiday to commemorate the expulsions of Germans from eastern and central Europe at the end of the war and during its immediate aftermath. Attempts to further institutionalise German victimhood mean that it is becoming increasingly part of Germany’s official memory culture. But what do these dynamics in German collective memory mean for German national identity? Although national history is not the sole determinant of national identity – and with an increasing multiculturalisation of contemporary societies probably all the less so – history, or rather the collective memory of it, plays a key part. As previous debates about Germany’s National Socialist past have shown, they had a vital relevance for the present: they were debates about Germany’s self-understanding. German collective memory in the twenty-first century might not quite provide yet the ‘feel-good past’ that Rüdiger Suchsland has identified,90 but it is certainly much more accommodating for identificatory purposes than it has ever been. Unlike divided Germany, united Germany is also not any longer reminded of the consequences of its pre-1945 history by the Wall and memory trends are no longer subjected to the straitjacket of the Cold War. The new historical consciousness provides a very different basis for the identity of the Berlin Republic since – what Heinrich has called – the ‘disruptive factor’ for German national identity 91 is under commemorative control while the globalisation of Holocaust memory has

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ensured that the burden of Germany’s past is shared and its weight on German shoulders is significantly reduced. National symbols traditionally tainted with the memory of Germany’s aggressive, excessive and destructive nationalism are experiencing a revival. The World Cup in 2006 – a hoped for German victory being described as offering Germany a national reawakening 92 – made this very clear. More than at any other time in postwar German history, German flags were flying again and the Federal President expressed his pleasure that he was not the only one with a flag on his car. As Albrecht von Lucke described it, it was an ‘unprecedented spectacle’ in terms of the ‘politics of the past’.93 It was also not a one off. Germans seem to relish opportunities again which allow them to bathe in national sentiment. Even the visit of the Pope, a German from Bavaria, prompted displays of refound German patriotism.

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2 The Quest for ‘Inner Unity’

In addition to the problems the legacy of the National Socialist period created for Germany’s national identity in the post-war period, there was also the very obvious and visible problem of German division. Due to the Cold War realities, both German states were not only faced with the challenge of finding a modus operandi for their dealings with each other but also that of constructing collective identities which would take into account the divided nature of the nation of the present without alienating their own citizens as well as those on the other side of the divide and their respective alliance systems. As the self-proclaimed legal successor of the Third Reich, West Germany, in particular, was faced with the difficulty of finding a way to deal with a state the rightful existence of which it was – at least initially – not prepared to acknowledge. Not only was it not prepared to accept the existence of a separate German state, but through the Hallstein Doctrine, it also threatened to break off diplomatic relations with any state that would. Thus the basic dilemma of the FRG in the early years was how to foster relations with the GDR at the same time as avoiding the impression of tacitly approving its existence. Remarkably, within less than twenty years, the FRG’s position changed from one of non-recognition to one of ‘change through rapprochement’ (Wandel durch Annäherung) which maintained formal non-recognition but which recognised through implication. Even though in actual fact Germany’s European neighbours were not too upset about its division – best illustrated by the famous remark of French author François Mauriac who said he loved Germany so dearly that he hoped there would always be two of them – throughout 47

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the Cold War period, the West, at least in terms of treaties and official discourse, never left any doubt regarding its formal commitment to a future reunification. As the division continued and the two Germanies became more and more entrenched in the respective superpowers’ sphere of influence, however, this turned more and more into merely paying lip-service to what increasingly looked like a very distant and unrealistic objective. The preamble of the Basic Law articulated the goal of achieving German unity and freedom in self-determination. And in Article 7 of the Germany Treaty of 1952/4 the Western Allies France, Britain and the United States committed themselves to the common goal of realising through peaceful means a reunited Germany which would be based on a liberal democratic constitution similar to that of West Germany and which would be integrated into the European community. The uprising in East Germany on 17 June 1953 and its brutal suppression was commemorated in the FRG until 1990 as the ‘Day of German Unity’ (Tag der Deutschen Einheit). At least for those who wanted to make use of it, it provided a welcome annual reminder of the Federal Republic’s Eastern, communist ‘other’, the ‘unlawful regime’ (Unrechtsregime) of the GDR and ‘the German question’ in general. The building of the Wall in 1961, however, made national unity increasingly unlikely and its explicit pursuit was seen more and more as an obstacle to German-German relations. The emphasis on practical improvements at the level of the individual pursued through Ostpolitik resulted in an implied acceptance of the status quo with unification slowly disappearing from the agenda. The national question regained some significance under Helmut Kohl, albeit only in terms of rhetoric. Along with a more general ‘spiritual and moral change’ (geistig-moralische Wende) promised by the new German chancellor when he came to office in 1982, there was also a renewed emphasis on the national question. Helmut Kohl regularly emphasised that legally ‘the German question’ remained unresolved (‘juristisch bleibt die deutsche Frage offen’) and under his leadership the significance of the ‘Day of German Unity’ was also revived.1 His efforts in this respect were perceived as revisionist by many but nothing much changed in practice in the first years of his chancellorship. In the early years of the GDR and heavily influenced by the Soviet leadership, there was a formal commitment to reunification. Whether

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it was a genuine offer to the Western powers by Stalin or a mere manoeuvre to avoid the Western integration of the Federal Republic, at least formally, the possibility of German unification was considered and promoted as a desirable option provided it resulted in a neutral state. After Stalin’s unsuccessful attempts to persuade the Western powers of the viability of a united but neutral Germany, however, from the mid-1950s onwards, the Soviet leadership promoted a ‘twostate-theory’ which envisaged the existence and formal recognition of two sovereign German states. The formulation of the Ulbricht Doctrine in 1967 – the equivalent of the Hallstein Doctrine which dominated West Germany’s formal approach to the GDR from the mid-1950s until it was officially abandoned with the emergence of Ostpolitik under Willy Brandt – aimed to put pressure on the Federal Republic to recognise the GDR as a sovereign state and was a manifestation of this new approach. In contrast to the Federal Republic which at least formally maintained its commitment to unification, the German Democratic Republic’s leaders thus moved away from the idea of a united state and, building on the Soviet leadership’s ‘two-state-theory’, from the 1950s started to develop the framework for a ‘two-nation-theory’. In 1972, Honecker described the relationship between ‘our Republic and the FRG’ as being like any other bilateral relationship with a third country. Furthermore, the early 1970s saw the words ‘German’ and ‘Germany’ increasingly disappear from official terminology in the self-description of the GDR and its institutions and saw them replaced by the abbreviation ‘GDR’: the ‘Germany Channel’ (Deutschlandsender) became the ‘Voice of the GDR’ and the ‘German Academy of Sciences’ became the ‘Academy of Sciences of the GDR’. The text of the GDR anthem ‘Risen from the Ruins’ (Auferstanden aus Ruinen) was no longer to be sung, but instead an instrumental version of the anthem was played since the line ‘Germany united Fatherland’ (Deutschland einig Vaterland) collided with the new theory according to which a single German nation no longer existed.2 This ‘bi-nationalisation’ or even de-Germanisation also became entrenched in the GDR’s constitution. The constitution of 1968 which had described the German Democratic Republic as ‘a socialist state of the German nation’ was revised in 1974 turning the GDR into ‘a socialist state of workers and peasants’. The desire for unification was officially abandoned, with the ‘unification article’

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being omitted from the 1974 constitution. Instead, the constitution emphasised that the GDR was a key member of the community of socialist nations. The 1980s witnessed a revision of this policy and the GDR leadership started to sound ‘more national’ again, even though unity was only seen as a possibility after the adoption of socialism by West Germany. This reformulation of the national question took place against the backdrop of the GDR’s economic crisis and was mainly meant to provide the SED (Socialist Unity Party) leadership with much needed legitimacy. According to Winkler, this constituted an acknowledgement by the SED leadership that it had failed to construct a GDR-specific identity.3 Apart from the difficulty at the level of the political elites of how to position themselves and their respective states regarding the question of national unity and how to deal with one another, West German intellectuals were also faced with the question of how a collective identity could be constructed in the Federal Republic which somehow acknowledged the past but which also took account of the divided present.

Ersatz identities and attitudes towards the national question between 1949 and 1990 During the lifetime of the West German state, attempts to construct a collective identity became increasingly preoccupied with the question of how to deal with the Nazi past – rather than the divided present – and revolved around discussions of the role envisaged for this past in the consciousness of its citizens. By and large two key positions emerged which were represented by those who wanted to ‘normalise’ Germany by drawing a line under its Nazi past and to make room for positive expressions of national identity and those who maintained that Auschwitz should be at the core of (West) German identity rendering any positive identification with the German nation impossible. West German intellectuals who supported the latter position often considered Germany’s division to be the price that had to be paid for the atrocities committed by the German nation between 1933 and 1945. According to them, the only way forward was to be found in an identity which was based on the liberal democratic principles of the West German state rather than the discredited German

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nation. By implication, this also elegantly circumvented the need to discuss the place of West Germany’s communist ‘other’. Instead of emphasising the German nation in ethnic terms which would have raised the national question, the concepts at the heart of these constructions of collective identity conveniently placed democratic values as promoted in the West German constitution at their core and emphasised the demos rather than ethnicity as the grounds for cohesion in the Federal Republic. Patriotism based on the nation was to be replaced by pride in the liberal democratic order of a ‘civic nation’ which was linked through common values. A number of intellectuals developed variations on this theme. What they all had in common was their endeavour to develop concepts which allowed for collective identification without employing ‘the nation’. In the 1960s, Günter Grass was already describing the Basic Law as ‘the most beautiful thing about our state’ and claimed that only democracy could be his Heimat.4 In the postscript to the fifth edition of his book The German Dictatorship published in 1976, Karl Dietrich Bracher described the Federal Republic as a ‘post-national democracy among nation-states’5 and on the 30th anniversary of the Basic Law in an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on 23 May 1979, Dolf Sternberger called the West German ‘constitutional state’ (Verfassungsstaat) ‘a kind of fatherland’ (eine Art von Vaterland) and described the commitment of the citizens of a state to its constitution and the principles and values it enshrines, thus coining the term ‘constitutional patriotism’ (Verfassungspatriotismus).6 Habermas later developed further the concept of ‘constitutional patriotism’ and ‘post-conventional identity’. Describing ‘constitutional patriotism’ as ‘the only patriotism which does not alienate us from the West’, Habermas saw this kind of patriotism emerging from a commitment to universalistic constitutional principles rather than the West German Basic Law. If an identification with the nation thus gave way to universalistic value orientations, the chances for the development of a ‘post-conventional identity’ increased, and according to Habermas, ‘we have not completely wasted the opportunity afforded by the moral catastrophe’.7 By its critics, ‘constitutional patriotism’ was dismissed as an artificial construct – a ‘patriotism for professors’8 – which clearly lacked the emotive dimension normally associated with patriotism. It was also criticised for forcing Germany into a ‘post-national straitjacket’

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which none of its neighbours had adopted and which left any kind of national pride to the far right to exploit. Yet, in view of Germany’s Nazi past and its divided present, the advantages of this kind of patriotism were clear. It avoided an identification with the discredited German nation and, by implication, rendered the German question irrelevant. It allowed West German intellectuals to claim that (West) Germans had surpassed the traditional collective self-understanding based on the narrowness of the nation-state and had progressed onto cosmopolitan terrain. By implication, however, it also meant an acceptance of the status quo regarding the German question. Arguably, West German left-liberals thus applied the same strategy as the GDR leadership and used the ideological underpinnings of their state as the basis for constructing a collective identity, that is, democracy and its values in the West and socialism in the East. By addressing the problem of identity after Auschwitz as well as the German question, Günter Grass deviated from this approach with his concept of a ‘cultural nation’ (Kulturnation). In the mid-1960s, when the division of Germany became increasingly accepted in the Federal Republic, he accused the West Germans – seduced by capitalist prosperity and a facile anti-communism – of having abandoned their fellow nationals in the East. He promoted a kind of confederation between the two Germanies of ‘unity but not unification’ within the context of a German Kulturnation.9 Thus, Grass embraced the notion of two Germanies sharing a common culture but did not consider it necessary that this coincided with the territorial state (Staatsnation). In society at large, figures for West Germany showed that attitudes towards the question of national unity were very much linked to specific decades and generations with the issue increasingly losing its central position over time. Surveys during the Adenauer chancellorship showed that more than 80 per cent of respondents agreed with the goal of the preamble of the Basic Law to ‘achieve German unity and freedom in free self-determination’. From the 1960s onwards, however, more and more West Germans confessed to having got used to the division and from the 1970s onwards, unification as a political issue nearly disappeared altogether.10 In the East, however, the national question maintained its salience. Throughout the decades of division, nearly 90 per cent of East Germans were said to be in favour of German unification, even

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though – much like the Germans in the West – they did not really expect it to happen.11 As Glaab has pointed out, overcoming division had more significance for the population of the GDR since it could be linked to concrete expectations of changes to individuals’ lives.12 Dissatisfaction with the GDR regime in political and economic terms could always be contrasted with the apparent success of the West German regime and the one very clear and direct link to this successful regime was national unity. According to a study commissioned by the West German government and carried out by Infratest between 1968 until 1989, a stabilisation of the GDR never really happened because its citizens failed to identify with their system. In their opinion, the GDR system failed in key areas such as personal liberties, quality of life and perspectives for the future. The FRG became increasingly attractive for GDR citizens even though by the mid-1980s nobody really still expected unification to happen.13 The alienation between East and West increased throughout the years of division with West Germany in particular turning away from its communist ‘other’. Whereas 40 per cent of the respondents in the 1950s still said they had friends and family in the GDR, only a quarter of West Germans over 16 could respond affirmatively when asked the same question at the end of the 1980s. Whereas East Germans, due to access to West German TV and radio, were fairly well informed about the West, West Germans were not only rather ignorant about the GDR but were also not particularly interested.14 For the citizens of the GDR, however, the Federal Republic increasingly served as a comparison which allowed an evaluation of one’s own standard of living and which became increasingly attractive as a result.15 Similarly, the sense of belonging to the same nation decreased markedly in the West in the 1970s and 1980s,16 whereas Germans in the East – in spite of all the attempts by the SED leadership to prescribe a socialist identity – maintained their position and continued to consider themselves as part of the German nation. By the 1980s, the division of Germany was largely seen as insurmountable. Both Germanies had attempted to construct collective identities which were post-national and largely ignored the other part. Neither the GDR’s attempts to rally its citizens around a socialist nation nor the attempts of West German intellectuals to use democracy and its values as the main focal point for identification

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became accepted by society at large, however. Neither the professors’ nor the proletarians’ patriotism seemed to succeed in making the nation redundant.17 On the whole, attitudes towards the national question appeared to be largely dictated by contemporary satisfaction or dissatisfaction and respective needs in the two German states. In addition, it seemed to be very much a generational issue. As Mary Fulbrook has pointed out, ‘social and political experience, and in particular generation, seemed to be crucial factors in determining whether people saw the division of Germany as “natural” and the two Germanies as distinct states sharing little but a common language, or as a terrible, regrettable consequence of losing the war.’18 West Germans, enjoying increasing prosperity and affluence in the post-war years, settled quite happily in their part of Germany, with especially the younger generation not particularly interested in a united nation any more. East Germans on the other hand, more and more dissatisfied with the political and social realities of ‘really existing socialism’, seemed to maintain an interest in the idea of the nation. Rather than East Germans aspiring to the unity of some elusive nation and just as in the revolutions in Eastern and Central European states towards the end of the 1980s, however, it was dissatisfaction with their own system and the positive perception of the West German system that made the idea of national unity consistently more attractive and popular in the East. In view of the way the division of Germany had become accepted in the Federal Republic, however, the fact that unification was driven forward by the West German leadership so speedily and actually happened within less than a year after the fall of the Wall came as a surprise.

The collapse of communism in the GDR and the concept of the nation Whereas the 1980s still witnessed fundamental debates about the place of the Nazi past in West German collective identity with especially the historians’ dispute (Historikerstreit) of 1986–87 showing more polarisation on this issue than ever, discussions regarding the German question were nowhere near as salient an issue among West German intellectuals and the population at large. More than ever before, the division of Germany seemed settled in the shape of the

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continued existence of the two states. An end to the Cold War and a dissolution of the two hostile blocs did not appear in sight. In fact, rather than indicating an end to the Cold War, the decade started with suggestions that the opposite was happening. US President Reagan and his plans for the ‘star wars’ programme at the beginning of the 1980s gave rise to the notion of a ‘new cold war’ emerging. Even towards the end of the decade, there was little reason for optimism, as Kohl made clear in his Report on the State of the Nation in Divided Germany in December 1988, less than one year before the fall of the Wall: ‘We continue to have, of course, no reason to assume that we are any closer to a resolution of the German question. I can only warn of such illusions which can occasionally be heard here.’19 For the first time in the history of the Federal Republic, the discussion following Kohl’s speech in the Bundestag showed open disagreement among the parliamentarians regarding the national question. Especially on the left, doubts were voiced as to whether a formal unification of the two German states continued to be tenable as a key political goal of the FRG.20 Whereas West Germany was largely characterised by political and economic stability in the 1980s, the situation was quite different in East Germany. Like most other communist party-states in Eastern and Central Europe, the East German regime increasingly ran into economic difficulties and encountered legitimacy problems with free elections and freedom of movement (Reisefreiheit) constituting the key demands of the dissatisfied population. Whilst Poland and other countries in Eastern Europe had already started the transition from communist one-party rule and a command economy to pluralism and economic liberalism by spring and summer 1989, the East German leadership still tried to hold on to old orthodoxies and refused to acknowledge the need for significant and fundamental change. True to Tocqueville’s dictum that the most dangerous moment for a tyranny comes when it tries to reform itself, changes to the law regulating foreign travel which came into effect at the beginning of January 1989 resulted in over 160,000 GDR citizens applying for emigration thus putting the GDR leadership under severe pressure. In addition to the strain put on the leadership by those applying for emigration and occupying the embassies in Prague, Budapest and Warsaw as well as the ‘permanent representation’21 of the Federal

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Republic in East Berlin, increasing pressure also mounted in view of the fact that in summer 1989 the Hungarian government decided to open its border for East German ‘tourists’ to cross into Austria.22 The very visible stream of East German citizens leaving their ‘people’s democracy’ gave significant further impetus to the opposition movement at home which became more and more organised in a number of groups and which demanded political liberties, the right to free movement and significant political reforms, in particular the abolition of the dominant status of the SED as well as of the control of the secret police, the Stasi (Staatssicherheit). In contrast to what happened in the GDR before, that is the ‘exit’ movement (those leaving the country for the West) undermining the ‘voice’ movement (the opposition at home), in autumn 1989, ‘public voice was stimulated by private exit’23 and in combination the two movements increased the pressure on the East German leadership.24 As in most Eastern European countries, a deep-seated economic crisis of the command economy and the decreasing support for the regime in the population caused not only by its economic failure but also by the repressive methods it used to sustain its power were the key reasons for the widespread dissatisfaction. Gorbachev’s reformist agenda and particularly his renunciation of the Brezhnev Doctrine provided the protest movements with vital momentum. In contrast to the liberation movements in Eastern Europe where nationalism provided a key rallying point against – what at least used to be – the Soviet oppressor, however, the protest movement in the GDR was largely concerned with reform. The appeal ‘Departure 1989 – New Forum’ (Aufbruch 1989 – Neues Forum) published by the New Forum (Neues Forum), one of the protest groups which gained most visibility in autumn 1989, illustrates very well that the key demands were for far-reaching reforms of the existing structures rather than their elimination. At the same time as demanding a democratisation of the political system as well as more flexibility of the economic system, the appeal explicitly distanced itself from a system that promoted ‘unhindered growth’ and an ‘elbow society’. The national question was not part of the equation and the Germany on the other side of the Wall was simply not mentioned. The New Forum was no exception in this respect. The division of Germany did not constitute a concern of the protest movement in the GDR. How it could enter the agenda and become the single most important concern within a

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matter of weeks after the fall of the Wall on 9 November is therefore not easy to understand. For a number of reasons, however, unification on West German terms was achieved and achieved much more quickly than anybody could have anticipated. The key reason is to be found in the fact that the dynamics of the East German Revolution meant that neither the East German leadership nor the opposition managed to maintain control over the process. Even after Honecker was removed from office in October 1989 and replaced by Egon Krenz and a new Politburo was elected on 8 November, the GDR continued to suffer from a severe leadership crisis. And although Hans Modrow took over as Prime Minister on 13th November and instigated far-reaching reforms in the GDR – the special status of the SED was removed from the GDR constitution at the beginning of December 1989, in February 1990 Modrow included representatives of the opposition groups in his government and just before the elections in March a law was passed that allowed GDR citizens to buy property – he lacked credibility since he was still largely seen as a representative of the old regime. Revelations about the GDR regime in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Wall also did not help to portray the SED as a credible and trustworthy alternative to a takeover by the West either. The regime further confirmed the suspicion of its citizens that it was unable to reform in any significant way when it decided not to dissolve the Stasi and its apparatus but keep it under a different name, that is, the Office for National Security. In January 1990, it was decided that the elections to the People’s Chamber (Volkskammerwahlen) would be brought forward to March which meant that the newly formed opposition groups did not have much time to establish themselves properly and fight the elections successfully. West German parties on the other hand simply moved into the East to support their GDR block vote equivalents.25 The election result showed significant support for the Alliance for Germany (Allianz für Deutschland), an electoral alliance consisting of right-ofcentre parties all of which favoured unification. With these elections, the fate of the East was pretty much decided since the parties in government – the Alliance for Germany needed the Social Democrats and the Liberals to form a grand coalition under Lothar de Maizière’s leadership – were very much dominated

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by the West and the desire for unification. Genuine East German voices from the protest movement wanting to reform the existing system rather than eliminate it had lost their influence. An alternative to unification, for instance the formation of a confederation, was no longer feasible. Kohl’s diplomacy and decisiveness ensured national as well as international support for, or in the case of Britain the toleration of, German unification within less than a year after the fall of the Wall. And while Kohl’s diplomatic efforts were bearing fruit in the weeks and months following 9 November 1989 and opposition to German unification subsided, his national unity rhetoric gained momentum. It ensured that his push for unification was increasingly perceived by the GDR population at large as the quick fix to all the ills of the East. To be sure, initially, the unity of the nation that Kohl promoted was not translated into a united state, not least out of consideration for the Federal Republic’s international partners who were worried about increasing instability. Rather than suggesting it was the yearning for national unity, even Kohl very much interpreted the mass emigration from the East as a general desire for freedom. In his Report on the State of the Nation in Divided Germany on 8 November 1989, one day before the fall of the Wall, he claimed that the emigration of tens of thousands of people from the GDR constituted a ‘vote with their feet’ and meant above all ‘a declaration of their belief in freedom and democracy, the rule of law and a socioeconomic order which ensured that people received a fair share of the fruits of their labour’.26 National rhetoric and national symbols soon became more prominent, however, even though not always warmly welcomed. The German national anthem, for example, experienced a sudden revival when members of the Bundestag spontaneously got up – something Kohl would later describe as a ‘spontaneous declaration of the commitment to the unity of the nation’27 – and sang it in reaction to the news that the Wall had been opened. The anthem was sung again on the following day at an event outside the Schöneberger Rathaus with Helmut Kohl and Willy Brandt and several other key politicians in attendance.28 Kohl claimed that the scenes in the streets of Berlin during these hours illustrated that 40 years of division had not divided one nation into two: ‘There is no capitalist nation, there is no socialist nation,

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there is only one German nation, committed to peace and freedom.’29 When Kohl spoke, he was the last speaker, he was heckled by what he described as a ‘rioting left mob’ on the John-F.-Kennedy-Platz. When the group of politicians started to sing the national anthem, it was again drowned out by demonstrators heckling. Nevertheless, Kohl exclaimed: ‘We are and will remain one nation and we belong together’.30 That Kohl did not uphold the distinction between nation and state became more obvious very soon. Already on the 11 November at a press conference, Kohl asserted that the final goal – to realise the right of all Germans to self-determination – had not been reached yet.31 Kohl’s leadership in terms of national rhetoric started to be reflected in the demands that were voiced by East German citizens. Calls for national unity were explicitly articulated for the first time on 20 November 1989 and were reiterated on 27 November at the demonstrations in Leipzig when 250,000 people took part in the Monday demonstrations and protesters added to the slogan ‘we are the people’ (‘wir sind das Volk’) by chanting ‘we are ONE people’ (‘wir sind EIN Volk’) and ‘Germany – united Fatherland’ (‘Deutschland – einig Vaterland’), a quote from the GDR anthem which had been banned in the 1970s. By the end of November, the calls for national unity were widespread with ‘one nation’ and ‘one people’ increasingly taken to mean ‘one state’. Kohl had been advised by President Bush in a telephone conversation on 17 November not to do anything that could destabilise the situation, that is, to avoid talking about unification or the dismantling of the Wall.32 Nevertheless, Kohl took the initiative and presented his Ten-Point Plan – described by a Green Party member of the Bundestag as ‘Heim-ins-Reich’ politics – to the Bundestag on 28 November. He envisaged the transition from a ‘contractual community’ (Vertragsgemeinschaft) to a confederation and then to a federation. Kohl later claimed that he consciously left out any details regarding a time schedule during which this was to happen but admitted that he himself was convinced that the process to achieve German unity would take three or four years.33 The population in the East received his commitment warmly and responded positively to Kohl’s national rhetoric and symbolism. In his memoirs, Kohl relates how, during a visit to Dresden on 19 December 1989, ‘tens of thousands lined the streets as we drove

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through the town, whole workforces had stayed away from work, whole school classes stood there and cheered us. On their transparencies, it said: “Kohl, Chancellor of the Germans” or the “Federal State of Saxony welcomes the Chancellor” ... Again and again, people shouted “Helmut, Helmut”, “Germany, Germany” or “we are one people” ’.34 Furthermore, Kohl described a ‘sea of German flags’ when he addressed a group of people outside the ruins of the Frauenkirche in Dresden (19 November 1989).35 Kohl finished his speech with the request that ‘God bless our German fatherland’.36 One factor that is sometimes neglected in discussions about the dynamics of the path to unification is the fact that there was an increasing exodus of people from the GDR to the West which put more and more pressure on West Germany in terms of housing and employment, for example. As Habermas put it, the stream of refugees coming over the Hungarian border and the subsequent opening of the Wall caught the Federal Republic with its ‘pants down’.37 The West German political leadership increasingly felt the strain and tried to stabilise the situation in order to avoid a continuing exodus leaving a long-term mark on the socio-economic future structure of the GDR. Due to the experience of East Germans, a stabilisation was clearly unlikely to happen without unification which, after all, at least on the surface provided the safest and best option in the view of many GDR citizens. Apart from the domestic situation, the West German leadership also had to consider potential developments on the international stage. It was still not quite clear what would happen in the Soviet Union and there was an understandable feeling that things should move quickly before the Soviet leadership would return to a more hard-line approach. The drive to national unity was further enhanced by the fact that there was no widespread consensus for an alternative and, as mentioned earlier, certainly no leadership in the East provided by a party or former opposition group that had the necessary public presence, resources and inner cohesion and offered a suitable alternative which would have ensured stability and the preservation of a GDR identity. There was also a lack of trust in the viability of a reformed GDR in the population at large. And why should an alternative be explored if the GDR could just join the much tried and tested and largely successful political and economic system of the FRG? The GDR command economy was bankrupt and would have had to declare itself

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as such if the currency union had not been introduced at the beginning of July 1990.38 While everything was still unstable, many people continued to leave for the West. From the perspective of many GDR citizens, unification – considered by large parts of the liberal to left intellectual milieu as ‘an obscene act’,39 as Karl-Heinz Bohrer described the reaction of the left-of-centre – thus seemed to offer a quick fix which would stabilise the situation quickly and which would also offer the economic advantages which GDR citizens knew only too well from watching West German television. The slogan ‘if the D-mark does not come to us we’ll go to the D-mark’ (‘kommt die D-mark nicht zu uns, gehen wir zu ihr’) encapsulates the attraction the West German system held and which was so arrogantly dismissed by intellectuals in the West as well as the East. As Monica Maron put it so well, it was ‘the arrogance of the man with his stomach full, the man disgusted by the table manners of the starving’40 that made the late Stefan Heym describe GDR citizens indulging in consumerism in the West as rooting ‘with cannibalistic lust ... like pigs through display tables intentionally placed in their paths by Western shopkeepers’.41 Similarly, Jürgen Habermas condescendingly described Easterners’ desire to participate in Western style consumerism as ‘chubby-faced DM-nationalism’.42 Günter Grass – who went as far as likening the Unification Treaty to Hitler’s Enabling Act of 193343 – after the fall of the Wall resurrected his idea of a confederation based on the German Kulturnation which could sometime in the future turn into a federation of German states. He supported his position by a reference to history, arguing that Germans had lost their right to live in a united nation-state because of Auschwitz. In his view, Germany would ignore the lessons of history if it returned to the nation-state which had caused so much misery. Germany had to accept the division as some form of punishment for its history but should also consider it as preventing it from repeating past mistakes. Similarly, Oskar Lafontaine – at that time chancellor candidate of the SPD in the federal elections in 1990 – spoke out in favour of a close cooperation of the two states but against the creation of a traditional nation-state. As Gerhard Schröder pointed out in his memoirs – due to the socialisation of West Germans – nobody of his generation seriously expected unification to happen and when it did it was met by more scepticism than was helpful.44

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In retrospect, unification might appear to have been inevitable. Rather than being driven by a national calling, however, it was motivated by the dissatisfaction of GDR citizens with their system, in particular the lack of free movement and free elections but also the inability of the system to satisfy material demands which made it very tempting to join a system that appeared to deliver in material terms and offer political liberties. It can therefore be seen to have been the attraction of the West German system, its underlying values and particularly its output rather than the sense of national belonging or ethnicity – or what Richard Schröder elusively described as East Germans ‘simply wanting to be Germans’45 – that made unification an attractive option in the East. The opposition of the liberal left, the legal process of unification as well as the international negotiations preceding it were only a prelude to the problems that followed. In view of the reasons for unification which have been discussed in this section – none of which seriously related to some national calling as Kohl’s rhetoric seemed to suggest – it is hardly surprising that creating an ‘imagined community’ in the aftermath of formal unification has turned out to be a huge challenge.

The quest for ‘inner unity’ The Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (or TwoPlus-Four Treaty) which was signed in Moscow in September 1990 by the two Germanies and the former occupying powers France, Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union and which came into effect in March 1991 resolved the international dimension of German unification and returned full sovereignty to a united German nationstate. The Unification Treaty – signed by the leadership of the two German states in August 1990 – regulated the GDR’s accession to the Federal Republic through Article 23 of the Basic Law and established German unity with effect from 3 October 1990. This date was now to replace the 17 June as a national holiday and the Day of German Unity. What nobody had thought possible only months earlier was achieved in a short space of time: formal unification was completed within less than a year of the fall of the Wall. Even though the speed of the process as well as the constitutional path by which it was achieved were criticised by some46 – in particular

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members of the GDR’s protest movement and a number of high-ranking Social Democrats who would have preferred to use Article 146, create a new constitution and hence also a new state – there appeared to be considerable support for the assumption Willy Brandt had articulated only a few months earlier that what ‘belonged together’ could now ‘grow together’. As Gerhard Schröder has remarked with the benefit of hindsight, however, after unification for the Germans the true test would be living together rather than apart.47 There is a widespread perception that the anticipated ‘growing together’ has not been happening and that the ‘flourishing landscapes’ which Kohl had promised to the East have not materialised. Concerns about ‘one German nation’ being divided into two German states have given way to concerns about one German state being divided into ‘two nations’ and the Report on the State of the Nation in Divided Germany has been succeeded by the Annual Report on the State of German Unity. As if discussions of nations as ‘imagined communities’48 had never taken place, the national paradigm has dominated public, political as well as scholarly debates in post-unification Germany. Most of these debates assume that some kind of ‘inner unity’ can be achieved. In contrast to early optimistic assumptions, however, many scholars have identified divergence rather than convergence in the years since unification. The concept of inner unity has been discussed in terms of differences regarding socio-economic issues, for example, per capita GDP, income, unemployment and so on, but also in terms of the respective populations’ attitudes and beliefs regarding each other as well as towards the unified state and its institutions. The ‘one nation’ rhetoric of politicians is in stark contrast to academic assessments which speak of two different societies and even two peoples. In view of survey data collected in the first half of the decade after unification, Kaase and Kaase in 1996 came to the conclusion that ‘it will require a lengthy process to mellow estrangement and antipathies between the two German peoples’.49 Focussing on the reasons for the differences in political attitudes ten years after unification, Jonathan Grix concluded that it was ‘the impact of both 40 years of socialist rule and the transformation process that has led to the weak relationships between economic performance, civil society and trust in institutions’ resulting in an ‘east German society clearly distinct from that

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of the west’.50 In view of the consistent and continued divergence, however, nearly two decades after the fall of the Wall, scholars have started to query the basic assumption by wondering whether what is supposed ‘to grow together’ actually ‘belongs together’.51 The lack of ‘inner unity’ is not necessarily always seen as a problem, however. Possibly making a virtue out of necessity, at times, united Germany’s pluralism and diversity have been commended rather than its lack of inner cohesion being seen as problematic. In his inaugural speech on 23 May 1994, Federal President Roman Herzog, for example, suggested that it was not necessarily something negative that on 3 October 1990 Germany had not only become bigger and more populous but also more colourful, contradictory and even controversial claiming that diversity has always been Germany’s asset.52 In the 1990s, voices also emerged in the academic debate that started to look more closely at the concept of ‘inner unity’ and suggested that any definition of the term must ‘counteract the anti-pluralistic search for homogeneity’, thereby reducing its scope to merely implying ‘the consent of the citizens to the constitutional order.’53 And this, Veen argued, was already the case. Supporting his claim with a number of survey results, he suggested that ‘[t]he fundamental principles of the constitution, its basic values, institutions and processes are supported by substantial majorities in west and east Germany and the same holds true for the principles of the social market economy.’ Seven years after unification Veen thus asserted: ‘We already live in a state of inner unity and diversity. Democracy does not require more unity.’54 In the second decade after the fall of the Wall, however, even this rather scaled down, ‘lowest common denominator’ definition of the concept of inner unity is in doubt. The liberal democratic order and the social market economy are increasingly losing rather than gaining support in the new federal states (see also Chapter 3). According to a report published by the German government, 15 years after unification 56 per cent of respondents in eastern Germany are fairly discontented with democracy, compared with only 33 per cent in the west. A similar picture emerges when easterners and westerners are asked about their satisfaction with different aspects of their lives such as employment, household income, standard of living and so on. With the exception of childcare,

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eastern Germans consistently express less satisfaction compared with the citizens in the west.55 Interestingly, decreasing satisfaction with the new system in the east seems to go hand in hand with increasing identification with the old system. The citizens of the former GDR who throughout its lifetime never really identified with the system, began to identify with it shortly after its demise. At the same time as starting to retrospectively sentimentalise the GDR, an identification with the Federal Republic is increasingly being questioned.56 Particularly but not exclusively those who lost out in the transition from a command to a market economy have started to take refuge in the memory of everyday life in the GDR which – compared with the increasingly cold climate of global capitalism and its crises – in retrospect appears comfortable and cosy. Only a few years after the majority of GDR citizens could not get rid of their much hated system and its products quickly enough, they now retrieve it in parts. In view of the fact that the east received a complete and utter western makeover with very few things staying the same – famous but telling exceptions being the Ampelmännchen (red/green man traffic light symbol) and the grüner Pfeil (green arrow) – this is hardly surprising. As the title of a publication which traces the biographies of 16 citizens of Thuringia before and after the fall of the Wall suggests ‘My country disappeared so quickly ...’57 Ostalgie – nostalgia eastern style – has emerged and, adapting to capitalist consumerist culture, has shown a considerable presence in television shows and at (GDR) parties, through clothes displaying the emblems of previous GDR sports teams and Trabi rallies.58 ‘GDR parcels’ which contain products from the former GDR can be purchased and in 2007 in Berlin the Ostel opened, furnished in the style of former GDR hostels, complete with pictures of the former SED leadership adorning the walls. Bearing in mind the difficulty of keeping apart private memories of everyday life in the GDR and the socialist order that provided the context, it nevertheless appears to be the case that even socialism is assessed rather mildly in retrospect.59 Nearly three quarters of respondents between the age of 35 and 50 in the east (compared with only 44 per cent of the same age group in the west) agree with the statement that socialism is a good idea which so far has not been properly put into practice.60

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It is not only socialism in abstract terms that experiences a rather positive evaluation in the east, however. Asked which side they would like to live on if the Wall were to be erected again, over 50 per cent of respondents in the east would rather live in the west but over a third said they would opt for the east. Significantly, a positive evaluation of the GDR is not always based on actual experience or even knowledge of its system. Even though nearly 50 per cent of east Germans between 14 and 24 confess to knowing fairly little about the history, politics, culture, society and way of life of the GDR, they respond quite positively when asked to identify the strengths of the GDR. In 2007, around 60 per cent of eastern Germans – even the age group between 14 and 24, who cannot possibly remember much, if anything, about the GDR – agreed with the statement that it was a shame that nothing remained of the GDR that one could be proud of.61 Although the federal states in the west kept their system, a degree of Westalgie can also be detected in television shows, literature and films.62 West Germans also have had to gradually become accustomed to a different Federal Republic. Not only is it larger, but it is also faced with new challenges such as high unemployment, the erosion of the welfare state, budget deficits and a re-militarisation of German foreign policy adding up to an overall profile which is in stark contrast to what West Germans grew accustomed to between 1949 and 1990. Even though Westalgie does not appear to be as widespread in the west as Ostalgie is in the east, there is no doubt that the past is being sentimentalised on both sides. There are a number of reasons for such a positive retrospective evaluation of the GDR and even Ostalgie to emerge. Bearing in mind the impact of the present on the construction of collective memory, the current dire socio-economic circumstances are no doubt partly responsible for the recourse to an allegedly more pleasant past. After all, in the east unemployment is twice as high as in the west63 and poverty levels have also been rising disproportionately in recent years64 (for a more detailed discussion, see Chapter 3). The fact that even those who have hardly any conscious experience of life in the GDR come to a fairly positive assessment also suggests that it is not so much the objective features and characteristics of the GDR that are being taken into account but the GDR as an imaginary place that allows for an identification, possibly vis-à-vis the west, but also as the place of one’s family history.

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Efforts regarding transitional justice and to ‘work through the GDR past’ have also made it hard for the citizens of the former GDR to accommodate their private memories within the official discourse on the GDR. Transitional justice has been pursued most vigorously in Germany compared with other post-communist states65 and has – instead of building bridges – also contributed to the continued perception of difference.66 Many eastern Germans have felt that the west was making up for what it had failed to do regarding the Nazi past after 1945. Notions of a ‘double past’ (see Chapter 1) which were aimed at putting Germany’s two dictatorships on an equal footing also did not help in this respect. And in contrast to the silence of the 1950s which – as Lübbe argued – was helpful in terms of aiding integration and social cohesion in the new West German state, debates about the Stasi and the repressive East German state featured prominently in the public debates of the 1990s. As early as August 1990, the GDR parliament passed legislation regarding the files of the secret police which then provided the basis for a new law passed by the German Bundestag in December 1991 guaranteeing individuals access to their Stasi files. Joachim Gauck, a vicar who became a major figure in the protest movement in 1989, headed the authority in charge of the files – due to its complex title, the media have tended to refer to it as the Gauck Authority (Gauck Behörde)67 – until it was taken over by Marianne Birthler in 2000 and subsequently became known as the Birthler Authority (Birthler Behörde). Furthermore, in May 1992, the Bundestag decided to establish an Investigatory Commission on the ‘Working-Through of the History and Consequences of the SED Dictatorship in East Germany’ (Enquête Kommission ‘Aufarbeitung von Geschichte und Folgen der SEDDiktatur in Deutschland’), followed in 1995 by ‘Overcoming the Consequences of the SED Dictatorship in the Process of German Unity’ (‘Überwindung der Folgen der SED-Diktatur im Prozeß der deutschen Einheit’). As Jennifer Yoder has pointed out, this had the advantage ‘that the process of political cleansing could begin promptly and with ample resources’. At the same time, however, it had the disadvantage that the formal rules of the process were not created by the East Germans themselves. Thus, those who passed judgement on East German leaders were not the citizens of the former GDR but West German judges.68

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Furthermore, towards the end of the 1990s the Bundestag decided to establish the Federal Foundation for the Working-Through of the SED Dictatorship (Bundesstiftung für die Aufarbeitung der SEDDiktatur). In addition to this, the policy on funding memorials (Gedenkstättenförderung) ensures the commemoration of both German dictatorships. The German government has thus surpassed itself in its attempts to write official history. Whether this ‘politics of memory’ from above contributes to an actual understanding of GDR history and the nature of the SED dictatorship is questionable.69 Discussions about the nature of the GDR – was it a Unrechtsstaat or not – which re-emerged in 2009 suggest that two decades after the fall of the Wall, there is still not even a basic consensus regarding its assessment.70

One state but two nations? Whereas the German nation is asserted much more strongly in the Berlin Republic, the emergence of an eastern identity based on a nostalgic view of the GDR past suggests more problems than ever before with the ‘one nation’ concept. Views that used to be dismissed in the GDR as communist propaganda that presented the Federal Republic as the devious ‘other’ where crime, unemployment and a ruthless society rampage appear to have been adopted retrospectively in the east at the same time as life in the GDR and socialism are increasingly experiencing a positive evaluation. Habermas’s worry that with the demise of the GDR, socialist ideas will have been discredited – something he described as ‘one of the most evil aspects of the legacy that the GDR brings to the expanded Federal Republic’71 – appears to have been unfounded. Bearing in mind the widespread dissatisfaction among its citizen with the politics and economics of the GDR regime at the end of the 1980s, its retrospective rehabilitation illustrates the widespread discontent in the east with the post-unification present. As Maurice Halbwachs pointed out, collective memory is determined by the needs of the present.72 The positive reinvention of the East German communist state is thus more likely to be a sign of the frustrations caused by the capitalist present than a reflection of satisfaction with the communist past. After all, it became clear quite soon that the former GDR citizens had not joined the old Federal Republic in terms

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of its economic performance. The financial burden of unification and the effects of globalisation have challenged the assumptions and the traditional success of the Modell Deutschland as well as the affordability of its welfare structures. Just as its economic performance – at least in comparison to the West – was one of the key factors in the collapse of the GDR and West Germany’s affluence was one of its key attractions, the economic performance of the new Republic will be a decisive factor with regard to system acceptance in the east. The fact that in contrast to their counterparts in East Germany, towards the end of the 1980s West Germans had come to terms with the divided present suggests that it was the FRG’s successful political and economic system rather than some kind of national calling that was at the heart of widespread East German support for unification. It is likely that, at least in the short term, any assessment of the new liberal democratic order by the former citizens of the GDR will be negatively influenced by current socio-economic problems. Whereas Germans in the west have had a fairly long and overall rather positive experience with democracy and the social market economy, the experience of many Germans in the east with the new system has been bleak. However, in post-war West Germany a political culture supportive of the new democratic order also only emerged hand in hand with the ‘economic miracle’ and increasing and widespread affluence. If socio-economic problems ease and relative affluence ensues, it is highly likely that east Germans will lose their recent reluctance, be prepared to rejoin the ‘imagined community’ of ‘the German nation’ and become more supportive of its basic structures. What Kaase and Kaase pointed out in 1996 still applies two decades after unification, however: ‘[w]hatever the differences in attitudes to unification, there is no trace (even with the PDS) of a movement to undo unification.’73 A survey nearly two decades after unification shows that nearly two thirds of respondents between 35 and 50 in the east and nearly half of the respondents in the same age group in the west expect it to take at least another ten years for the economy and standards of living in the east to reach the levels of the west.74 In contrast to the expectations following the fall of the Wall, the assessment of many citizens thus now appears much more realistic.

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A number of commentators have also attached considerable importance to the issue of generational change.75 They assume that younger and future generations will increasingly share a sense of belonging together. This will depend on the socio-economic context, however. The power of collective memory and its socially constructed nature in light of the present suggests – and survey figures support this – that if present conditions do not improve, even those young people who have spent the larger part of their conscious political life in united Germany will show similar attitudes towards identity issues and the GDR past as their parents.76

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3 From Prosperity to a Democracy of Want?

The failure of the Weimar Republic – largely seen as a ‘republic without republicans’ – had demonstrated quite clearly that for a new political system to succeed the support of its citizens is crucial. When democracy was introduced in the new West German state, there was considerable concern that the Federal Republic would – notwithstanding extensive re-education programmes for its citizens – be a ‘democracy without democrats’. This was based on the awareness that the new democratic order was unlikely to succeed if Germans were still mired in anti-democratic attitudes and ways of thinking. It was recognised that support of and identification with the system and its values would determine its long-term viability. As discussed in Chapter 1, West Germany faced considerable problems in the aftermath of the Nazi dictatorship, the Holocaust and the Second World War with regard to questions of collective identity. Hitler’s destructive nationalism and the atrocities committed by Germans between 1933 and 1945 meant that the German nation was discredited to an extent that made any positive identification with it largely impossible. German division further complicated any efforts to create a collective identity. The fact that it was necessary to introduce the new democratic order in a rather top-down fashion made it, at least initially, also unlikely that West Germans would wholeheartedly support it, let alone have any affection for it and make it part of their collective self-understanding. Somewhat surprisingly, however, democracy became accepted fairly soon, albeit initially more for the fact that it ‘worked’ rather than for its values. 71

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In 1959, in his lecture ‘What does coming to terms with the past mean?’ Adorno suggested that democracy was accepted in Germany as ‘a “working proposition” – something functional that up till now has allowed and even promoted prosperity.’ Adorno did not think that democracy had been internalised by Germans ‘to the point that people really experience it as their cause, and so consider themselves agents of the political process’. Rather than it being valued as ‘the union of the individual and the collective interest’, democracy was valued ‘according to its success or failure’, according to Adorno.1 There was clearly no immediate and unconditional support for the new system. Especially the socio-economic situation provided for some scepticism in the very early years. Two years after the Federal Republic was founded, for example, 98 per cent of respondents stated that in their view they personally as well as the country as a whole were better off under National Socialism or before.2 Within the first decade of the Federal Republic’s existence, this changed, however. In their study of political attitudes in five nations, Almond and Verba identified widespread satisfaction with political output in West Germany even though this did not seem to be reflected in a more general attachment to the system. At the end of the 1950s, West Germans professed a lot more pride in their economic system and the characteristics of its people than in their governmental institutions.3 Findings from the 1960s confirmed this trend4 suggesting that ‘democracy worked not because people liked it, but because it performed well.’5 The 1950s witnessed the emergence of economic prosperity which was to become a key feature of the Federal Republic and which provided it with much of its ‘soft power’ in later years. In the first decade of its existence, the West German economy grew annually by over 8 per cent.6 The Bundesbank, independent from the government of the day, was founded in 1957 and – by controlling the money supply and the interest rates – ensured a stable currency. On the whole, the social market economy – a market economy with a commitment to social justice – turned out to be a huge success. The choice of the CDU’s election slogan of 1957 Keine Experimente (‘No Experiments’) suggests that things were going well. The first decades of the Federal Republic were characterised by steady economic growth, low inflation and, by the early 1960s, full employment. The West German coordinated market economy, later

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also referred to as Rhineland capitalism, provided a framework for the ‘economic miracle’ to happen and ensured increasing and increasingly widespread affluence and social cohesion. Even though the question of whether the ‘social’ element of the social market economy was ‘ever more than a fig leaf for the introduction of neoliberalism’7 was raised right at the beginning, in view of the impressive growth of the economy from the 1950s onwards, an expansion of the welfare state could be afforded and became an important part of the West German political consensus. The success of Ludwig Erhard’s social market economy made it easy for West Germans to grow fond of their new state. During the 1950s, as the material situation improved, opinion polls showed decreasing support for the previous systems that had governed Germany and increasing support for the democratic system. This shift in political preferences neatly correlated with the increase in average weights of the Germans, as Fulbrook has pointed out.8 As the material situation improved for more and more sections of society in the first few decades of the Federal Republic, West Germans’ support for their system changed from the initial pragmatic and conditional support to more principled and stronger system support.9 West Germans not only increasingly accepted and supported their political order: from the mid- to late 1960s onwards, the detachment and political apathy that was characteristic of the early post-war years also gave way to more and more citizens’ involvement.10 West Germans had clearly moved on from passively accepting the system and being merely interested in its outputs to actively taking part in it and providing some input. In contrast to what Almond and Verba had identified in the late 1950s, a more participatory culture had evolved. The fact that the West German economy started to face problems from the mid-1960s onwards did not seem to have a major negative impact on system support. Significantly lower average annual economic growth rates, budget deficits and increasing inflation started to become familiar features of the West German economy. The oil crisis of 1973 left its mark on the German economy and with rising unemployment, the decisions of the Bundesbank also became more controversial. Nevertheless, it was the United Kingdom that was described as the ‘sick man of Europe’, whereas West Germany’s system was hailed as Modell Deutschland, a term coined by the socialliberal coalition as a slogan in the run-up to the election in 1976 in

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which it won a narrow victory. This gave way to perceptions that Germany might have ‘lost the war but won the peace’. The German model, characterised by consensual industrial relations based on high levels of protection for, and participation of, workers (co-decision principle, intra-company work councils, protection against unfair dismissal), an extensive vocational training system, close working relations between banks and companies, an independent Bundesbank and in general terms a more regulated market, was largely seen as providing high employment, reliable economic growth and monetary and fiscal stability. While other countries were fighting stagflation in the 1980s, Germany’s inflation rate was only around 6 per cent while the OECD average was twice as much. Whereas attitudes towards democracy seemed to rely on the economic performance of the Federal Republic in the early years, there were no indications from the 1960s onwards that the stability of the system would be threatened if its output was not satisfactory any more. What Almond and Verba had suggested in their initial study – that the stability of the system might be in doubt if the level of output became less satisfactory11 – was not confirmed. The economic problems from the late 1960s onwards did not appear to have an immediate effect on attitudes towards democracy. Democracy seemed to have consolidated itself to the point where an economic downturn ceased to be a threat. Not even the recession and rising unemployment following the oil crisis of 1973 caused significant shifts against democracy. This does not mean that there was no dissent. The extraparliamentary opposition of the late 1960s and particularly the terrorist activities of the Baader-Meinhof Gang (or Red Army Faction) in the 1970s caused considerable turmoil. Especially the latter caused a crisis which at times appeared to threaten the very existence of the West German polity. Rather than support for democracy being eroded, democracy and its values became more and more firmly embedded in West German political culture. Towards the end of the 1980s, over half of respondents identified West Germany’s political institutions and the constitution as a source of pride (compared with 31 per cent in 1978 and only 7 per cent in 1959). At the same time, the economy featured even more strongly than previously. In 1988, 50 per cent of respondents declared it to be a source of national pride (compared with 33 per cent in 1959 and 40 per cent in 1978). This was

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followed by pride in social welfare programmes which was named by 39 per cent of respondents. Remarkably, pride in political institutions and the constitution had overtaken pride in the economy, albeit only just.12 The late 1970s and the 1980s also witnessed attempts by intellectuals who tried to conceptualise West Germans’ increasing attachment to their system by constructing it as an alternative to a conventional kind of patriotism. This was seen to be more benign as well as progressive since it was based on an attachment to the constitution and its principles rather than the nation in ethnic terms (see also Chapter 1). In 1979 Dolf Sternberger described the West German constitutional state as ‘a kind of fatherland’ and in an article published in Die Zeit in 1986, Jürgen Habermas suggested that ‘constitutional patriotism’ – based on universal constitutional principles – was the only patriotism that did not alienate Germany from the West, and that a return of Germany to a conventional kind of identity would destroy the only reliable basis of Germany’s ties with the West.13 Economic and social achievements continued to play an important role for the self-understanding of the Germans but this was complemented by an attachment to the constitutional framework of the Federal Republic. Towards the end of the 1980s, a consensus had emerged among scholars, supported by evidence from survey data, that West German political culture was characterised by two key pillars: the importance West Germans attached to the economy – with even its ‘ideological critics’ having made peace with its basic principles, as Jarausch has pointed out14 – but also to the liberal democratic constitution which provided the framework for the West German state.15 Especially in view of the developments since unification, the question is why the system did not lose support even though its performance had declined by the 1980s. David Conradt has suggested in this context that through performance a system can accumulate a ‘reservoir of goodwill’ which can be drawn upon in times of crisis or low performance levels. In his view the history of the Bonn Republic after 1949 suggested that the system had shown itself able to deal with a number of political and economic challenges and crises and still maintain high levels of support even during times of low system performance or change. In Conradt’s view, it was the ‘reservoir of

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goodwill’ that had been accumulating during the times of high-level performance which ensured that a positive record continued to be transmitted in socialisation processes to new generations, thereby sustaining support of the system.16 While attitudes remained very positive throughout the lifetime of the old Federal Republic, it became increasingly difficult to sustain the system which received so much support and which had – particularly through its socioeconomic achievements – become a key part of West German identity. The 1980s thus saw increasing demands for reform. The German welfare state had grown significantly during the years of affluence and was starting to become more and more costly. Suggestions that Germany was losing its ability to compete in the international arena became more and more frequent. In contrast to the United Kingdom which underwent an extensive programme of radical reform under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, achieving reform in the Federal Republic was very difficult. In contrast to the United Kingdom where majoritarian government normally facilitates fundamental reforms, Germany’s consensus democracy – in terms of institutions as well as prevailing attitudes – showed itself unable to react flexibly to the changing times and economic circumstances. German federalism increasingly obstructed effective government – with the Bundesrat often playing the role of ‘the extended arm of the opposition’ rather than representing regional interests. The need for what Gordon Smith had called the ‘politics of centrality’17 more and more frequently obstructed the path to reform. What had worked well in the decades following the Second World War at a time of relative prosperity when extensive welfare provision could easily be afforded turned out to lack the necessary flexibility to achieve more than just incremental policy change. At the end of the 1980s, the lack of scope for significant reform was enshrined in the institutional set-up of the Federal Republic but it was also reflected in attitudes in society with the result that the main political parties were rather reluctant to promote extensive reform programmes. Pride in Modell Deutschland and a prevailing perception that Germany was still doing well, particularly in international comparison, masked the urgency of reform. The consequences of this reluctance to reform only became painfully apparent in the aftermath of unification, when developments at the domestic, European and global level put the German model under severe strain.

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Modell Deutschland under pressure In spite of reduced growth rates in the 1970s and 1980s, at the end of the 1980s the average growth rate of the West German economy over its forty years of existence was still 4.4 per cent. In view of the success of the social market economy in the Federal Republic after 1949 and the way it enhanced Germany’s self-perception as well as how others perceived it, there was thus a widespread belief in 1990 that the ‘capitalist restoration’ that had worked after 1949 would now work again in the east.18 Several months before the formal political unification on 3 October 1990, on 1 July 1990, the Treaty on the Creation of a Monetary, Economic and Social Union between the two German states came into effect, thus introducing overnight the social market economy including the full provisions of the West German welfare system in the East. In a television address marking the occasion, Chancellor Kohl predicted that there would be ‘flourishing landscapes’ in the East and that ‘no one will be worse off’. Once it became obvious that such optimism was wholly misplaced and that the east was experiencing enormous socio-economic problems, these remarks would be frequently held against Kohl in the years after unification. He also pointed out at the time, however, that there would be much hard work before ‘unity and freedom, prosperity, and social equality for all Germans’ could be achieved. Helmut Kohl and those who supported his push for rapid unification clearly did not anticipate just how hard it was going to be and obviously did not reckon with the possibility that ‘unity and freedom’ might not be complemented by ‘prosperity and social equality for all Germans’. Several of the key provisions of the monetary, economic and social union are considered to have contributed significantly to the problems that ensued. The conversion rate of 1:1 (for amounts of up to 4000 marks and 1:2 beyond that) that was applied when the D-mark was introduced in East Germany was criticised by, among others, Karl-Otto Pöhl, the President of the Bundesbank, as a possible stimulus for inflation. The main problem was, however, that together with later agreements to harmonise salaries, the swift introduction of the D-mark and the generous conversion rate meant that the East German economy lost its previous markets and became largely uncompetitive overnight. The adoption of the FRG’s extensive welfare system (unemployment, healthcare, social benefits, pensions) which – in view of rising

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unemployment and demographic changes – had already become a burden on public finances during the 1980s in the West, meant that a system was expanded that many had considered unsustainable in the old Federal Republic. Soaring unemployment in the wake of unification mainly in the east has created an additional enormous strain on the system which together with demographic changes has resulted in fewer and fewer people in employment having to finance more and more people in receipt of benefits and pensions. The resulting increase in non-wage costs (Lohnnebenkosten) has further contributed to already high labour costs making it more difficult for Germany to compete in a global market. The transfer of West Germany’s institutions to East Germany thus ‘accelerated the crisis of the German model in the unified country’.19 The costs of unification also turned out to be much higher than had been anticipated. The German Unity Fund which made provisions for the period between 1990 and 1994 allocated 82.2 billion euros to the new federal states. This was replaced by Solidarity Pact I which ran from 1994 until 2004 and has been followed by a new agreement, Solidarity Pact II which has allocated a further 156 billion euros to the new federal states in the east for the period between 2004 and 2019. By 2020, it is anticipated that a harmonisation of living standards and economic conditions will be achieved and any difference between east and west will be dealt with by the normal system of transfers between the federal states (Länderfinanzausgleich). There is no doubt that unification has caused a serious strain on the German model and it may well be right that ‘one could make the case that the politics of unification left almost everybody worse off.’20 However, focussing exclusively on the domestic dimension runs the risk of ignoring the wider picture. Mistakes made in the process of unification have no doubt contributed to the difficulties facing united Germany. The inflexibility of the German model and the costliness of its welfare provisions are clearly also responsible. At the same time, however, developments beyond the national level have also had a considerable impact and help to account for the problems the German economy has faced since the 1990s. Christopher Allen, for example, has pointed out that in the late 1980s Germany started to be faced with ‘three exogenous shocks’ which began to destabilise and erode the post-war model. Firstly, continued globalisation meant that more advanced developing countries started to challenge the

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high quality production model of developed economies. Secondly, the institutional foundation of the German model was eroded through the expansion of the European Union under largely neoliberal rules. And thirdly, the institutional coherence of the western model was put under severe strain through the absorption of the five new eastern German Länder.21 The combination of these three challenges ‘impaired the ability of the early to mid-1990s governments of former chancellor Helmut Kohl to respond to these challenges in a fashion similar to previous postwar economic policies’.22 The pressure for reform was building up throughout the 1990s. In view of the strains on the system created by unification and the additional pressures, as outlined above, the need for reform became more urgent but it had also become more difficult to meet. In 1997, when the German Language Association (Institut für deutsche Sprache) voted Reformstau (‘policy gridlock’) word of the year, in his Berlin Address German President Roman Herzog gave his view of ‘the state of the nation’. Contrasting Germany with countries in Asia, Herzog suggested that – in spite of facing the most severe social and economic challenges for 50 years – Germany was paralysed by despondency and crisis scenarios. Even though he made it clear that he did not agree with Newsweek’s diagnosis of a ‘German malaise’, Herzog left no doubt that he considered a new departure to be crucial for Germany. Deviating from the traditional disposition of German presidents not to get involved in day-to-day politics, Herzog gave a long list of areas in which he considered reform as imperative, including the labour market, health insurance, the tax system, public subsidies and deregulation in public administration. In his view, a huge backlog of reforms had accumulated which could only be dealt with if Germany received a big shake-up (‘Durch Deutschland muß ein Ruck gehen’).23 With the end of the Kohl era and the advent of the new redgreen coalition one year after Herzog’s attempt at a wake-up call for Germany came a sense of the end of stasis and the beginning of change. An early initiative with the British Prime Minister Tony Blair suggested that Schröder would follow a more market-oriented course in economic policy. In a joint paper published on the eve of the European Parliament election in 1999 entitled Europe: The Third Way – Die Neue Mitte, Schröder seemed to depart from the SPD’s traditional approach to the economy and presented himself as a

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moderniser. The Blair-Schröder paper claimed that Social Democracy had found acceptance again because it stood ‘not only for social justice but also for economic dynamism and the unleashing of creativity and innovation’. The paper was largely considered to contain a neoliberal agenda. As Christian Schweiger has pointed out, however, despite Schröder’s ‘initial flirtation with Labour’s third way’, the paper was soon forgotten and the Schröder government’s first term in office was characterised by attempts to preserve the key features of the Rhineland model.24 In his second term, however, Schröder followed a much more reformist course. Speaking out against a night watchman state with minimal responsibility, in his government declaration of 29 October 2002 Schröder emphasised the necessity to modernise.25 In his view, the people of Germany knew that demographic trends and labour market changes required more financial prudence, more efficiency and extensive changes to welfare provisions. He introduced his highly contentious Agenda 2010, an extensive reform programme which suggested a serious overhaul of key provisions of the welfare state including pensions, healthcare and unemployment benefits but also a reform of the tax system. Furthermore, it aimed at making the German labour market more flexible, allowing opt-outs from general wage agreements between employers and trade unions and relaxing the protection against unfair dismissal. In Schröder’s view, the choice was between being pro-active and modernising the social market economy or waiting ‘to be modernised’ by the free market forces with the result that social aspects would be neglected. Again and again he confirmed his intention to restructure the welfare state at the same time as expressing his commitment to maintain it.26 According to Schröder, the Agenda 2010 was to modernise the German model in order to maintain cohesion and consensus not to replace it with the Anglo-Saxon model with its neoliberal features. It was a very difficult balancing act for the Schröder government’s economic policy to accommodate traditional Social Democratic values and attitudes towards the welfare state at the same time as modernising existing structures to make the welfare state more affordable and the labour market more flexible and internationally competitive. Hugely under pressure due to relentlessly rising unemployment with nearly 5 million people unemployed by 2002, labour market reforms were at the core of the red-green coalition’s

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programme. The Commission for Modern Services in the Labour Market or Hartz Commission, named after its chairman Peter Hartz, director of human resources at Volkswagen, was set up in February 2002 in order to come up with suggestions for reforming the actual institution in charge of employment services, the Public Employment Service (Bundesanstalt für Arbeit, subsequently renamed Bundesagentur für Arbeit) as well as proposing policies for actual labour market reforms. In contrast to previous attempts at reform, the Commission in charge of coming up with suggestions did not merely consist of members of the trade unions and employer organisations but comprised also scientists, company consultants and politicians. Shortly after the publication of the Hartz Report, the Chancellor made it clear that its proposals would be implemented in their entirety, amounting to the most comprehensive labour market reform in the history of the Federal Republic. There appeared to be a consensus that reform was badly needed. Roman Herzog had spoken out in favour of major changes in 1997 and in his first speech as newly elected President, Horst Köhler not only described the Agenda 2010 as pointing in the right direction but also suggested that it was necessary to continue on the path of much needed reform.27 Schröder was commended for his reform efforts even by his successor. Angela Merkel, whose advent to power was largely due to Schröder’s unpopularity over the Agenda 2010, praised the reform programme in her first government declaration in 2005.28 And in his third Berlin Address in 2008, President Horst Köhler reiterated his praise for the Agenda 2010 and – demanding a further reform programme – even called for an Agenda 2020.29 In spite of all this, the Agenda 2010 was highly contentious among the rank and file of the SPD and responsible for a series of election defeats of the Social Democrats. It was also the key reason for the left wing of the SPD splitting off to form a new party, the WASG, which in June 2007 merged with the PDS, the post-communist successor party of the SED (Socialist Unity Party) providing the Social Democrats with a significant challenge on the left.30 It was also responsible for the disastrous election result in North Rhine-Westphalia on 22 May 2005 and Schröder’s subsequent decision to table a confidence motion in the Bundestag with a view to asking the Federal President – after its anticipated failure – for the dissolution of the parliament and thus the possibility of early elections. In his memoirs, Schröder

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explained that he saw this as the only chance to avoid his eventual forced resignation because of lack of support in his own ranks.31 In the speech in which he explained his reasons for initiating the confidence motion, Schröder named the Agenda 2010 as the main reason for the waning support of his governing coalition in the population as well as among members of the governing parties themselves.32 There is no consensus regarding the impact or success of the reforms. Assessments range from considering them as essential to a more flexible labour market, to describing them as simply ‘illsuited to both the institutional and ideational ethos of the Federal Republic’33 or calling them ineffective and destructive to the foundations of the German welfare state. In particular, the introduction of Hartz IV, which brought down the level of unemployment assistance (after 12 months of receiving full unemployment benefit, or 18 months for those over 55) to the level of social security payment, has received a mixed response. For German Social Democracy the Hartz IV reforms are seen to have constituted a major turning point which alienated the SPD’s rank and file as well as the trade unions.34 Whereas some commentators have described the Hartz reforms and in particular the introduction of Hartz IV as ‘one of the most ambitious German reform projects in social insurance policy since World War II’35 which have ‘affected the character of the German welfare state and led to claims of the first signs of retrenchment’,36 others have gone as far as suggesting that the introduction of Hartz IV amounted to constitutional change.37 Whether Hartz IV can be considered as the government reneging on the constitutionally enshrined principle which establishes the social responsibility of the state (Sozialstaatlichkeit) is debatable. Welfare spending has certainly not been decreasing. A report by the government published in 2009 showed that due to the recession welfare expenditure was expected to increase to a record level of 754 billion euros, constituting nearly a third of GNP.38 At the same time, however, especially Hartz IV has had a considerable impact on the material situation of the rising number of unemployed, particularly in the east but also in the west. In this context Ulrich Beck, a German sociologist, has suggested that a general drop in the standard of living of all Germans has occurred resulting in what he calls the emergence of ‘the society of the have-less’ (Die Gesellschaft des Weniger). In his view, the

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introduction of Hartz IV has meant that the German post-war vision of a country constantly in the ascent, one of guaranteed economic growth, well-paid jobs, greater social security, peace and democracy ‘for yesterday, today and forever’ is in tatters. This downward trend cannot be dismissed as a mere blip anymore since it is threatening to become the fate of the majority. Whereas German society until the 1980s was on the rise – in spite of the continued existence of some inequalities, things were generally on the up – at the beginning of the twenty-first century, Germany’s star is on the wane, according to Beck.39 In fact, recent figures show signs of significant impoverishment. Regions with high unemployment show increasing poverty rates but there has also been a rise in the number of ‘working poor’. The first regional ‘Poverty Atlas’, published in 2009 but based on data from 2007 before the impact of the recession was felt, has shown a significant social divide in Germany regarding income and wealth with poverty rates in some areas being nearly four times as high as in others.40 In some areas in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Angela Merkel’s home state, up to 27 per cent live in poverty compared with only just over 7 per cent in the Black Forest region. The report identified an overall poverty rate for Germany of 14.3 per cent, with an average of 12.9 in the west and 19.5 per cent in the east. Rather than merely showing an east/west divide, however, there are also significant regional differences between north and south. In Lower Saxony, North Rhine Westphalia and Rhineland Palatinate around 15 per cent live below the poverty line whereas prosperous areas in the south average around 11 per cent. The Atlas has also shown considerable differences within regions. Whereas the northern parts of Bavaria have a poverty rate of around 15 per cent, it is only 7 per cent in Munich.41 Especially in view of the financial crisis and the recession that followed, the German economy does not look set to improve. In the first three months of 2009, the German economy shrank by 3.8 per cent which is the largest drop compared with the quarter preceding it since the beginning of record-keeping in 1970. Eurostat figures from January 2010 might show the unemployment rate in Germany to stand at only 7.5 per cent, compared with 9.9 per cent in the euro area and in the whole European Union (EU27). This figure obscures the vast difference in unemployment between the west and the east, however. In the second decade after unification,

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unemployment in the east has for most years been twice as high as in the west. In 2009 13 per cent were unemployed in the east and 6.9 per cent in the west. These figures suggest that ‘prosperity and social equality for all Germans’ is still a very distant prospect and if Beck is to be believed, it is unlikely to ever occur. Rather than having joined the successful social market economy that ensured a good standard of living even for those who could not provide for themselves, Germans in the east seemed to have joined a Modell Deutschland that has lost its model character.

Attitudes towards democracy Just as in the early years of the Federal Republic when there were fears that it would be ‘a democracy without democrats’, after unification attention turned to the question of whether democratic norms and practices would be accepted in the east and a stable democratic political culture would evolve that would serve to support the liberal democratic system. In contrast to the situation in 1949 in West Germany, however, in 1990 East Germans had considerable, albeit abstract, knowledge of West German democracy, the way it functioned and the way its socio-economic system had developed. In contrast to previous regime changes in Germany, the 1989 revolution was also democratic and peaceful. Nevertheless, data gathered mainly during the year between the fall of the Wall and unification came as a surprise: Our evidence indicates that the democratic transition in 1989– 1990 begins with the Eastern public expressing support for democratic norms and an enthusiasm for the democratic process. Easterners voice support for democratic attitudes at a level that rivals or excels the expression of these same values in the West. Thus the major finding is that the supposed communists of the East also claim to be good democrats!42 Thus East Germans seemed to have turned into ‘democrats by proxy’ during the years of division and started into their new system with positive attitudes towards democracy. Whether these attitudes were derived from the rhetoric of West German leaders or knowledge of

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and familiarity with the West German political and socio-economic system and the affluence it produced in the Bonn Republic is clearly difficult to establish. Dalton therefore rightly pointed out that political culture theory advised caution in interpreting these results: ‘As analysts of West German politics observed during the remaking of its political culture, democratic norms are not learned through formal education and indoctrination but through experience with the democratic process.’43 Should another economic miracle occur, Dalton ventured to predict, East Germans ‘would probably pass with flying colours because they begin with a more democratically oriented culture than the FRG in 1949’.44 Furthermore, he suggested that at least in part ‘the appeal of democratic attitudes in the East seems to be conditioned by the promises of prosperity that are identified with the West’.45 Looking at the socio-economic development of united Germany with eastern Germany in particular bearing the brunt of rising unemployment and impoverishment, Dalton’s note of caution was clearly not misplaced. Questions which aim to find out attitudes towards democracy usually explore three different dimensions. Firstly, the question whether democracy is the best form of government is aimed at an evaluation of the abstract level, that is, whether the citizens support democracy as a value system in theory. Secondly, the question regarding democracy as the best form of government for Germany is aimed at finding out attitudes towards democracy as institutionalised in Germany. And thirdly, pollsters ask about the level of satisfaction with the functioning of democracy in Germany.46 Recent figures suggest a trend towards a decline in positive attitudes towards democracy in east and west. Ten years after unification 92 per cent of western Germans and 78 per cent of eastern Germans considered democracy as the best form of government. Five years later the support dropped to 85 per cent in the west and 64 per cent in the east. Only a very small number in the west, 3 per cent in 2000 and 6 per cent in 2005, expressed the view that there was a better alternative to democracy. In the east, however, in 2005 nearly a quarter of respondents (up from 8 per cent in 2000) thought that there was another form of government that was better. Even though these figures suggest that a large majority still supports democracy as such, support has clearly decreased in the east and the west since 2000. Asked whether they considered democracy to be the best form

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of government for Germany, in 2006–07 89 per cent in the west responded affirmatively but only 63 per cent in the east (up from only 38 per cent in 2005!).47 Critical attitudes towards democracy in the east are even more pronounced when respondents are asked about their satisfaction with the actual functioning of democracy in Germany. The support for constitutional reality is markedly lower in the east. Whereas on average approximately 62 per cent in the west expressed themselves satisfied with the way democracy worked in Germany, only 38 per cent in the east expressed satisfaction with the system during the period between 1991 and 2006. Rather than indicating a particular upward or downward trend, however, approval ratings are characterised by fluctuations. What has remained constant, however, is the difference between approval ratings in east and west.48 Other indicators of a healthy democratic culture do not give reason for optimism either. Turnout in elections has continually decreased. After only 77.7 per cent in 2005 it reached a further all time low in the history of the Federal Republic in 2009 with only 70.8 per cent. Long-term political involvement such as political party membership has also decreased by a third since 1990 with the sharpest drop evident in eastern Germany.49 Furthermore, interest in politics has decreased particularly in the age group under 29.50 At the same time, however, in particular younger people increasingly choose non-institutionalised ad hoc forms of political participation such as petitions, demonstrations and boycotts, involvement in which has increased overall.51 In view of these figures it is no coincidence that political elites have started to express concern. The Report on the State of German Unity in 2009, for example, addressed the importance of a democratic political culture in united Germany and acknowledged that trust in democratic processes and institutions has actually been decreasing, describing this development as worrying. Emphasising that discontent is largely based on the way democracy in Germany functions rather than a rejection of its underlying values, the report nevertheless described it as ‘a challenge that is not to be underestimated.’52 In concrete terms, the challenge comes in the shape of political extremism and politically motivated violence on the right and the left. To the left of the SPD, the Left Party has established itself as a formidable competitor for the left wing vote in united Germany. Even

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though the party presents itself to the public as a reformist, new left force, the Annual Report of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution published in 2009 (Verfassungsschutzbericht) described the Left Party as continuing to be of ‘an ambivalent appearance’. This is mainly due to the continued existence of openly left extremist movements within the party such as the Communist Platform (Kommunistische Plattform) which, according to the report, aimed at ‘a political restructuring of the Federal Republic which is incompatible with the key characteristics of a liberal-democratic state as defined by the Basic Law’.53 According to the report, 2008 showed the highest level of crime with a far right background since the introduction of a new classification system for politically motivated crime in 2001.54 Among those with a far right background, politically motivated criminal offences had risen by 15.8 per cent compared with the previous year with violent crime having risen by 6.3 per cent.55 The highest number of incidents involving violent crime was found in the east. Whereas official membership of the main far right parties, the NPD (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands) and the DVU (Deutsche Volksunion), had decreased slightly, a number of violent far right groups such as the ‘Autonomous Nationalists’ had become an established part of the neo-Nazi scene showing increasing presence at demonstrations.56 Whereas education used to be seen as the key protection against far right and anti-Semitic attitudes, a recent study has suggested that this is no longer the case. There has been a significant increase in far right attitudes among more highly educated people.57 Furthermore, the study shows that those who have lost out in the modernisation process, ‘the modernisation losers’ (Modernisierungsverlierer) such as the long-term unemployed show comparatively higher approval rates for far right attitudes.58 There is no doubt that the recent economic decline, the restructuring of the welfare system and the material decline this has meant for a large number of people in united Germany have contributed to a growing lack of support for the system. The large-scale affluence that used to be the trademark of the Bonn Republic is slowly disappearing with less generous welfare provision for a greater number of people further contributing to widespread dissatisfaction. After all, the social-democratic consensus that had emerged in the post-war

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period regarding fairly generous provisions in case of illness, unemployment, old age and so on has continued to enjoy support in both parts of Germany since unification. Citizens in the east particularly, who due to the more difficult economic situation are more reliant on the welfare state, at the same time due to their socialisation are also expecting more from it, attach great importance to extensive welfare provision.59

Germany in the twenty-first century: A democracy without prosperity? The Bonn Republic was characterised by economic growth, largely good employment figures and an extensive welfare state which provided affluence for most of its citizens. Even though the new democratic system was initially not supported widely, system support grew in line with the successes of the social market economy and Modell Deutschland was domestically as well as internationally hailed as a success. In view of the difficulties of an identification with the German nation in the aftermath of the Nazi dictatorship, the emergence of pride in West Germany’s economic achievements enabled a kind of nationalism to emerge which was based on economic achievements rather than notions of a common culture and heritage. Eventually, satisfaction with the material situation also promoted support for democratic values with conditional support soon giving way to stronger and more principled support for democracy. Due to the accumulation of a ‘reservoir of goodwill’, support for the democratic system also continued in the 1970s and 1980s when economic difficulties started to become more frequent. However, the extensive and generous welfare state ensured a fairly good standard of living for most people with the result that West German society, at least in comparative terms, was not characterised by any deep divisions. This picture has changed dramatically in the Berlin Republic. Even though it is likely that Europeanisation and globalisation would have put the German model under intensive pressure in any case, the enormous challenges created by unification have exacerbated the problems. The hasty introduction of West German monetary, economic and social structures has largely been seen as a missed chance to reform the West German system which many considered to be in

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need of restructuring already before unification. Due to institutional and electoral factors as well as the international situation in 1989–90, however, a wholesale transfer took place very quickly. If the domestic and international situation had been different, West German political elites might well have used unification as an opportunity to reform the whole system.60 Poor economic figures, soaring unemployment and demographic changes have made it increasingly evident from the 1990s onwards that Kohl’s promises of ‘flourishing landscapes’ in the east and ‘prosperity and social equality for all Germans’ would remain a very distant prospect for quite some time yet. And even though governments have continued to express their commitment to the welfare state, reforms carried out by the red-green coalition especially during their second term in office between 2002 and 2005 have meant that those hit hardest by the economic problems – facing extensive and often long-term unemployment – can also no longer rely on adequate welfare provision. Unsurprisingly, this has had an impact on the support for democracy in united Germany. As Ulrich Beck has pointed out, trust in a democracy which renders one poor and out of work has yet to be won.61 Support for the system has always been intrinsically linked to its performance in terms of outputs. While West Germans have mostly known their democratic system to provide widespread affluence and ensure social cohesion, East Germans’ enthusiasm for the Federal Republic and swift unification was closely linked to its socioeconomic success. Accordingly, disenchantment with the way democracy functions in Germany has risen in east and west since the 1990s causing commentators to ask whether Germany is only a ‘fairweather democracy’.62 President Köhler seemed to have embarked on a mission that aims to promote a ‘democracy without prosperity’. In his Berlin Address in 2009, he asserted that democracy was more than just securing material growth and suggested that ‘we do not want to be good democrats only for as long as we can be sure that we are rich enough to afford it.’ Clearly trying hard to make a virtue out of necessity, Köhler even went as far as dismissing continued materialism by claiming that ‘we no longer want to make contentment and cohesiveness in our society dependent only on a quantitative concept of “more and ever more”.’63

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In view of the increasing impoverishment of large parts of society, it is debatable whether the problem of many Germans currently is to get ‘more and ever more’, as Köhler made out. And it is unlikely that Germans will easily get used to a democracy that ‘makes one free but not necessarily rich’.64 After all, that is not the kind of democracy West Germans used to experience and East Germans used to observe and had found attractive. There is no denying that the identity of the old Federal Republic rested to a large part on its economic success, domestically as well as internationally. As Peter Pulzer has pointed out, ‘the Federal Republic owed its influence in the world to its economic strength and the stability of its currency.’65 The impact of the decline of the German model therefore goes beyond the borders of Germany. As the next two chapters will show, however, the ‘soft power’ achieved through economic success in the Bonn Republic and now largely under threat due to the crisis of the German model since the 1990s has been replaced by resorting to more conventional methods of influence in international relations.

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4 The New Germany in the New Europe: A Leading Power

Following moral, military and material bankruptcy after the Second World War and the Holocaust, European integration allowed West Germany to reconstruct itself economically as well as rehabilitate itself morally. Whereas the military presence of the United States, and later, membership of NATO ensured security in face of the Soviet threat, the European stage provided the Bonn Republic with an opportunity to regain international trust and confidence during what has been described as its ‘extended probationary period’1 which lasted until unification in 1990. The European dimension allowed West Germany’s economic and political recovery and contributed significantly to the upward economic development of the Bonn Republic, giving further impetus to the emerging Wirtschaftswunder. Accordingly, West German political elites and the population at large were exemplary in their enthusiasm for European integration. In the aftermath of the Third Reich during which the national was taken to its aggressive and destructive extremes, the idea of Europe offered West Germans a highly welcome alternative in terms of collective identity. From the mid-1950s, West Germans thus increasingly favoured European integration over the concept of the nation-state2 with a European identity suggesting a forward-looking approach which made an identification with the discredited German nation seemingly redundant. Thus, West Germany was by and large keenly integrationist and – like in its foreign policy in more general terms – avoided articulating its national interest explicitly. The ‘permissive consensus’ or ‘tacit approval’ of the European project among the German population was mirrored by a consensus among political 91

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elites in favour of European integration even though that meant paying over the odds at times. Since it was relatively easily affordable during the lifetime of the increasingly affluent Bonn Republic neither politicians nor the West German people by and large minded financing compromises as long as they contributed to the European cause. Resentment against being one of the key net contributors to the EC budget was not (yet) articulated on a large scale. The absence of any significant Eurosceptic opposition at the level of political elites as well as in society at large – compared with Britain, for example – made it much easier for governments to shape their European policy in a pro-integrationist way. At the same time, however, West Germany’s European policy was characterised by strong multilateralism and governments were careful not to exercise any open leadership within the Community unless it was in tandem with France3 displaying what has been termed a ‘leadership avoidance reflex’4 which was also a hallmark of its foreign policy in general. Unlike other European countries such as France and Britain which traditionally sided with either Europe in the case of the former or the United States in the case of the latter, the Bonn Republic largely managed to balance its European and its transatlantic commitments and mostly maintained ‘equidistance’ between France/Europe and the United States. In contrast to other EC member states, European integration was central to West Germany’s existence, it had become the raison d’état of the Federal Republic.5 What was termed the ‘European imperative’,6 ‘reflexive Europeanism’7 or ‘quasi automatic German consent’ in European matters8 clearly worked for West Germany but it also worked for Europe. The European project benefited from German budgetary as well as visionary input. Furthermore, other West European countries as well as the United States agreed on the desirability of West Germany simultaneously being tied into the European as well as the transatlantic framework. And although, as Lundestad has pointed out, it is very unusual for a hegemon to help to build up a second centre,9 the United States, especially at the beginning, supported and even promoted European integration. The arrangement supplied another layer in the control of Germany which complemented that of the American presence in Western Europe. At a news conference in May 1950, Truman thus welcomed the proposal for the creation of the European Coal and

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Steel Community (ECSC) calling it an ‘act of constructive statesmanship’ which demonstrated ‘French leadership in the solution of the problems of Europe’ and whose reception in Germany was ‘likewise encouraging’.10 Thus Europe – invented in order to ‘tame the Germans’11 – conveniently offered ‘double containment’.12 A strong, anti-communist Western Europe helped to oppose the Soviet threat at the same time as tying down and controlling Germany. And although there is no scholarly consensus with regard to the question of just how much America influenced European integration,13 it was present at its ‘birth’14 and subsequently played a considerable role as ‘ultimate arbiter’ and ‘pacifier’ in Western Europe.15 On the whole, the partnership between post-war West Germany and Europe was mutually beneficial and largely supported by the United States. It allowed Germany to regain the trust of the international community and flourish economically. At the same time, the European project as well as Germany’s European neighbours benefited from Germany being tied into a multilateral framework and its ability to fund compromises allowing European integration to continue to move forward, eventually even gaining it the reputation of being the ‘paymaster’ of Europe.

German unification and Europe Although German unification was formally supported by the Western Allies in the Germany Treaty of 1952/4,16 when the prospect of German unification emerged as a real possibility in winter 1989–90, Germany’s European neighbours reacted with concern. Although they shared the same concern – a united Germany dominating Europe – they did not come to the same conclusions. Margaret Thatcher rejected outright the idea of a united Germany in whatever shape or form because she feared domination of the ‘German giant’17 or the ‘German juggernaut’18 in Europe.19 The Franco-German friendship which had been nurtured through the European project turned out to provide the key to German unification. Adopting a much more realistic and pragmatic line and acknowledging the historical opportunity that had offered itself to Kohl, Mitterrand proposed that France would agree to German unification provided that it would be closely integrated into the European framework,

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leading to Thomas Mann’s dictum of a European Germany rather than a German Europe. In his memoirs, Kohl summed up the French President’s position, expressed at a meeting in January 1990, as follows: ‘Mitterrand said that if he were German he would also be in favour of unification happening as quickly as possible. In this case, he would even regret to see that not all Germans were in favour of reunification. But [Mitterrand said] he was French.’20 Thus, Kohl and Mitterrand agreed that they should proceed together and strive for both German and European unity.21 Kohl, who had very good credentials as a European, continued to emphasise the link between German and European unity making it not only ‘two sides of the same coin’ but also a ‘question of war and peace’.22 European integration, which had already featured strongly in Kohl’s Ten-Point Plan for Policy on Germany of 28 November 1989, eventually also found entry into the preamble of the Treaty on German Unity of 31 August 1990. The fact that Article 23 of the Basic Law – used to formally achieve unification and therefore redundant – was replaced with an article which enshrined united Germany’s commitment to European integration into the constitution ensuring also the influence of the Länder in the process further symbolised its centrality at key levels of governance. Three main initiatives by the French President and the German Chancellor summed up in the Maastricht Treaty (or, formally, the Treaty on European Union) emerged as a result of the Franco-German desire to tie the united Germany closely into the European framework: European Economic and Monetary Union, European Political Union and a Common Foreign and Security Policy transferring what Joschka Fischer would later describe as ‘the three essential sovereign rights of the modern nation-state – currency, internal security and external security’ – to the European Union.23 With the Treaty on European Union, Kohl made significant progress towards his goal of making European integration irreversible for future generations for whom Germany’s past might not be sufficiently present to warrant a pro-European stance. The deepening of Europe caused by German unification and the widening that followed due to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe made the EU – after all initially only designed for six members – a much more complex entity. And instead of political and economic integration further enhancing the prospects of a common

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European identity, European societies started to become more Eurosceptic.24 Rather than moving further towards an ‘ever closer union’, post-Maastricht concerns started to emerge over institutional overstretch and an increasing diversification in terms of interests. Notions of a rise of ‘regressive nationalism’ also suggested that the European integration process had reached a critical point.25 The Maastricht Treaty can also be seen as a turning point in Germany’s European policy since it marked the end of Germany’s Europeanism by default.26 Even though German political elites were still largely integration-friendly, a more critical stance towards the European project also emerged in Germany. The big integration initiatives of the 1990s – the most successful decade of European integration – did not enjoy unreserved support. Increasing economic problems in the aftermath of German unification resulted in a growing reluctance to fund European compromises and caused resentment of what was perceived as an excess of bureaucracy and regulation from Brussels. Irritation over the loss of the D-mark – after all the symbol of post-war stability and prosperity and only just introduced in eastern Germany – and fears of the impact of eastern enlargement started to dominate the domestic agenda in Germany. Even strongly pro-integrationist politicians such as Helmut Kohl had to acknowledge the negative change of mood towards the European project with the result that in the final years of his chancellorship, Germany’s European policy became less committed, less hands-on and less vocal.27 A more pragmatic and less idealist approach to European integration which many commentators only ascribed to the new red-green coalition that came into office in 1998 thus already became apparent in the final years of Kohl’s chancellorship when Germany’s European policy became – as then Foreign Office Minister von Ploetz described it – ‘more British’.28 Even though political elites largely continued to be Euroenthusiasts, a new emphasis on cost and benefit emerged in the mid-1990s which then intensified under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.29

Europeans by choice? When Gerhard Schröder took office in 1998, the generational change in government and its impact on attitudes towards Europe

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soon became apparent. Schröder, born in 1944, stood for a new generation of political leaders who had no living memory of the Second World War and who approached the European project in a much more pragmatic and uninhibited way. As Timothy Garton Ash had already suggested a few years before this generational change took place, it could not be taken for granted that the Euroidealism of subsequent generations in Germany would be ‘as widespread or deep as that of the immediate postwar generation’.30 The past had still been very present in Kohl’s approach and the rhetoric he employed to legitimise his European policy very much revolved around Germany’s historical memory,31 usually resulting in Europeanism by default. With the advent of Gerhard Schröder the centrality of Germany’s past for the European project started to wane in discourse and policy. Together with more confident expressions of German national identity, this allowed the Schröder/Fischer governments to be more assertive on the European stage, showing less reluctance to defend Germany’s national interest and adopting an altogether more critical tone in their stance on Europe. Even though Schröder toned down his criticism once in office – during his time in opposition he had once described the euro as a ‘premature birth’ (Frühgeburt) – he still showed considerable readiness to articulate and pursue Germany’s national interests more openly and in a less restrained manner. At the beginning of his chancellorship, Schröder was already complaining about the way Brussels was wasting German taxpayers’ money and announced an end to the tradition of using the German chequebook to finance further integration. These comments were accompanied by a new, more brusque tone.32 In an interview shortly after being elected, for instance, Gerhard Schröder announced an end to a policy which achieved compromises among EU member states because of Germany’s readiness to fund them: ‘In the past, necessary compromises were often only reached because the Germans paid for them. This policy has come to an end.’33 During the run-up to the German Presidency, in a speech to the Bundestag on 10 December 1998, Schröder made his opposition to the financial arrangements negotiated in 1992 under Kohl quite clear and predicted that unless more fairness was reached regarding Germany’s payments, the German people would turn against Europe. He asserted that Germany was unable as well as unwilling to continue ‘to buy the goodwill’ of

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its neighbours with payments which turned into ‘an intolerable burden on the budget at home’.34 Even though statements like this might have been motivated by a desire to pacify emerging Eurosceptic elements in Germany rather than a formulation of future policy, they showed that in contrast to his predecessor who at least rhetorically had tended to merge German and European interests, Schröder clearly distinguished between the German and the European cause. According to Kurt Biedenkopf, former CDU Minister President of Saxony, Schröder thus ‘did away with this fiction of the European interest being the same as the German interest. You can talk of the German national interest in a much more relaxed way today. The time was ripe for this and he acknowledged it.’35 At a special party conference in Leipzig on 17 April 1998 only a few months before becoming chancellor, Schröder had already made the difference between his approach to Europe and that of Helmut Kohl very explicit. Schröder suggested that – in contrast to the approach of the previous generation – for his and even more so for the younger generation Europe was a normal part of life and that the euro was ‘not the price for German history, a decision of war or peace’ as Kohl had suggested. In Schröder’s view, Germany did not want the euro to overcome its past but as an option for the future.36 Accordingly, Schröder considered Europeanism for his generation to be a matter of choice rather than duty. In his first government declaration in November 1998, Schröder spoke of the ‘confidence of a grown-up nation which does not need to feel either superior or inferior vis-à-vis other countries’ and claimed that today Germans were democrats and Europeans not because they had to be but because they really wanted to be. In his view, Europe was not to replace or dissolve German national identity. By asserting that Germany’s neighbours knew that they could have more trust in a Germany that knew its own strength, Schröder also illustrated that a more assertive self-understanding of Germany was at the heart of his approach. According to Schröder it was always the ‘dangerous imbalances in the national confidence’ which caused extremism and problems.37 According to Jeffery and Paterson the new approach was not restricted to Gerhard Schröder but was part of a fundamental change in the attitudes of the German political elites towards European integration: ‘The fact that a range of actors engaged in European policy

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are individually moving towards a more instrumental approach suggests there is a common understanding of Germany’s new role in a changing Europe. There is some indication in this of a value shift, a changed normative sense of how it is that Germany should engage with Europe.’38 The positive societal consensus with regard to European integration also started to show cracks: ‘automatic Europeanism’ could no longer be taken for granted. Whereas support for European integration tended to be above average in the 1970s and 1980s, it started to decline from the mid-1990s onwards. Although in May/June 2005 50 per cent of respondents were still in favour of European integration, 43 per cent felt that it created more disadvantages than advantages.39 In line with what was happening in other member states, negative perceptions were often not even in line with the facts. Five years after the introduction of the euro, for instance, in Germany only 46 per cent of respondents considered the adoption of the euro as advantageous compared with 44 per cent who viewed it as disadvantageous. This evaluation of one of the key initiatives put Germany in the top three along with Italy (48 per cent) and Greece (46 per cent) and 6 per cent above the average among euro zone countries in terms of negative responses. In contrast to statistical data which showed the opposite, many people were convinced that the euro had made life more expensive and therefore considered its introduction as a drawback.40 Significantly, France, Germany’s closest ally in the EU and traditionally also strongly pro-integrationist, experienced a similar change of heart. A weak economy and high unemployment caused the French also to become more pragmatic and apply cost/benefit analyses to their European policy. Especially in the aftermath of the Maastricht Treaty the European project became more and more driven by the political elite and less and less supported by the population at large. The failed referendum on the European constitution in France in May 2005 – even though national issues played a large part in the outcome – and widespread protests against what was perceived to be the European Union’s neoliberal agenda further illustrated the extent of dissatisfaction with European integration in France. The more ambivalent approach towards Europe that emerged in Germany and France and other key member states in the 1990s and that has continued into the new millennium is set within a European

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Union which is very different from that of the 1970s and 1980s. It is more integrated than ever and shows a lot more presence in its member states than it did in the first few decades of its post-war development. The enlargement of the European Union since the 1990s has achieved more integration in Europe but it has also resulted in more potential for dissent. At the same time as deepening has made consensus among EU states more important than ever the diversity achieved through widening the EU has made it less likely than ever. Although the Treaty of Amsterdam of 1997 and the Treaty of Nice which came into force in 2003 helped to create the institutional, political and financial conditions for enlargement, the results in this area were overall still quite modest.41 And instead of the emergence of a common European identity that transcends the borders of the nation-state, there has been growing realisation that there is no trend towards an increasing identification in Europe. In fact, the opposite seems to have happened. The increasing Europeanisation of the economies and polities of the member states appears to have caused more Euroscepticism and the reassertion of national interest in these states and Germany is an exception no longer. In view of the new pragmatism with regard to European integration which became more pronounced under the red-green coalition, Germany’s European policy has been described as having become ‘weaker, leaner, meaner’.42 A case can certainly be made for describing the red-green coalition’s European policy as ‘leaner’ and ‘meaner’. The Berlin Republic’s economic problems and recurrent violations of the criteria laid down in the Stability and Growth Pact – which after all were rather stringent because of the Kohl government’s insistence during the negotiations – have forced it to play a far less generous role in EU budget disputes than the affluent and economically largely successful Bonn Republic ever did. Gerhard Schröder announced in his very first government declaration that his aim was to reduce Germany’s net payments to a fairer level. Even though he only had limited success with this – his aim was to achieve a reduction of Germany’s contribution by one third – it was the first time that any kind of reduction of Germany’s contribution had been achieved.43 In view of Germany’s continued commitment to all major European projects since unification, labelling its European policy as ‘weaker’, however, is inappropriate.44 The red-green coalition remained largely pro-European and in favour of key further integration initiatives

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even though it defended Germany’s national interest in a more uninhibited way. Even after the initiatives which led to the Maastricht Treaty and which were rooted in Kohl’s negotiations about unification, Germany continued to play a strong role showing itself to be a staunch supporter, if not instigator, of the major initiatives that followed. On 12 January 1999, in a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg at the beginning of Germany’s EU Presidency, Joschka Fischer expressed the new government’s commitment to a further deepening as well as widening of the European Union. He described it as the key task of the German Presidency to prepare the Union’s structures and processes so that it could turn from a Western European into an all-European Union that can act globally. For the EU to be able to play a global role and successfully meet the challenges of globalisation, he considered further deepening as crucial and expressed the red-green coalition’s commitment to a Common Foreign and Security Policy and a European Security and Defence identity. He also expressed the government’s support for widening which he considered to be not only a desirable export of stability but also a historical moral duty. Furthermore, Fischer considered it to be in Germany’s own interest since preventing crises was always ‘better, cheaper and especially more humane than acute crisis management’. Fischer thus even provided some continuity with Kohl’s approach in terms of rhetoric. In contrast to Schröder who in some ways represented ‘a much clearer break with the Rhineland rhetoric’45 and a new pragmatism, Fischer provided a European vision and ensured that the past continued to have a presence in the discourse on Europe. However, in addition to the strong commitment to further integration in terms of a geographical expansion as well as deepening structures and processes, Fischer also addressed the unfair financial burden on Germany which in his view needed to be dealt with.46 In spite of the new assertive tone of the Social Democratic Chancellor, Germany’s European policy under the red-green coalition showed a lot of continuity by playing an active and pivotal role in pursuing all major European projects – eastern enlargement, the European constitution and the development of the ESDP. With regard to eastern enlargement, the Schröder/Fischer governments continued the policy of the Kohl era by showing a serious and deep commitment to opening up the EU to the post-communist

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eastern European countries, at times also acting as their advocate in the negotiations over specific conditions.47 In view of the huge markets that would open up and put Germany in an excellent strategic position, there is no doubt, however, that enlargement not only appealed to Schröder on the grounds of European stability, fairness or even a sense of ‘duty’ but also for the economic benefits it would bring for Germany. In order to alleviate potential disadvantages, the Chancellor at the same time fought hard to protect German interests by insisting on a transitional period which would protect the already strained German labour market from the influx of migrant workers from the east. Similarly, there was substantial visionary input into plans for a European constitution. With his Humboldt speech of May 2000, Foreign Secretary Joschka Fischer ‘set Europe’s leaders thinking about the future of Europe in a much broader and more creative manner than in the negotiation then underway in the IGC that culminated in the Treaty of Nice of December 2000’.48 The future Federation of Europe, Fischer claimed in his speech, ‘will have to be based on a constituent treaty’ since the ‘problems of the 21st century cannot be solved with the fears and formulae of the 19th and 20th centuries’.49 The German Foreign Secretary thus contributed considerably to the creation of the Convention on the Future of Europe which EU leaders decided to establish in December 2001 and which started work in March 2002. Even though Fischer’s Humboldt speech was very vague about the key question as to the future relationship between national governments and the Union and the ratification process stalled in the aftermath of the failed referenda, it set the ball rolling in terms of thoughts as well as processes. In addition to the German contribution to the question of enlargement and the constitution, its input into the Common Foreign and Security Policy and, in particular, into the European Security and Defence Policy has also been significant albeit more cautious. The fact that considerable progress was made in this area towards the end of the millennium was initially largely due to Britain changing its position with regard to the idea of a European Security and Defence Policy. Once the French-British St Malo initiative had set the course, however, the Schröder/Fischer governments – in spite of the existence of strong antimilitarist forces in both parties as well as in society at large – worked towards common positions in this area and

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contributed considerably to making crisis management and peacekeeping central concepts of a common ESDP. Under the red-green coalition, there was also considerable continuity in terms of Germany’s commitment to Franco-German relations. Although bilateral relations between Germany and France were not at their best when Schröder came to power and there were a number of problematic issues regarding the number of votes in the Council of Ministers – for example, at the 2000 EU summit at Nice when Chirac refused to give Germany more votes in the Council of Ministers although it has the largest population50 – they did improve soon. After the failed summit in Nice, Chirac concluded that the integration process needed a push which French-German cooperation could provide and he agreed with Schröder to increase the number of bilateral meetings. Furthermore, the two countries managed to find a common line on key issues such as the constitutional convention, the Common Agricultural Policy and the European Security and Defence Policy. On 22 January 2003, a highly symbolic celebration of the Franco-German friendship took place in the shape of joint cabinet and parliamentary sessions. Another highly symbolic act took place at the Brussels summit on 17 October 2003 when Schröder – who had to go back to an important vote in the Bundestag – asked Chirac to represent him with Germany’s vote. Possibly even more significant was the fact that Chirac invited the German Chancellor to the 60th anniversary commemorations of the Normandy landings on 6 June 2004. The relationship between Chirac and Schröder thus was clearly in the tradition of the relationships between Adenauer and de Gaulle, Schmidt and Giscard d’Estaing and Mitterrand and Kohl. Joschka Fischer also saw the importance of the French-German relationship for the European project. According to Fischer, there were many countries which had the commitment but lacked the weight whereas others had the weight but lacked the commitment to Europe. In his view France and Germany had the weight as well as the commitment to Europe which was necessary for further European integration.51 Schröder’s refusal to join the war in Iraq was no doubt the main trigger for the intensification of Franco-German relations. After Schröder had ruled out German military involvement, it was vital that France – after all a permanent member of the UN Security Council that threatened to use its veto power – should come on

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board. The two countries thus provided the nucleus of the anti-war coalition which from mid-February 2003 was broadened into the socalled Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis.

Commitment to Europe continued? After the failed referenda in France and Holland, the constitutionalisation of Europe had reached a dead end and there was a desperate need for leadership and maybe even an injection of enthusiasm when Angela Merkel came to office in November 2005. There was no clear sense of direction and no answer to the question of how to get out of the deadlock over the constitution. In view of the stalled ratification process, the heads of government had decided at the European Council in June 2005 to allow a ‘period of reflection’ which would ensure that a broad debate could take place on the issue. And although Merkel had only been in office for a very short time, expectations were high that she would lead the EU out of this crisis and take the European project forward, in particular, by getting the stalled ratification process of the constitutional treaty moving again. It was astounding and unlike anything that had happened in Germany’s previous 11 European Presidencies, one commentator noted, that 62 years after the end of the war, a large part of Europe was looking towards German leadership for a way out of the crisis.52 Domestically, the Merkel government’s stance on Europe was – at least initially – complicated by the fact that she had to form a grand coalition rather than the coalition of her choice with the FDP which would have allowed her to pursue a much more neoliberal platform also in European matters. There were significant differences between the two coalition partners regarding key issues. The SPD, for instance, was strongly in favour of Turkey’s EU membership whereas the CDU/ CSU opposed it. Regarding Russia’s relationship with the European Union, the SPD favoured a close relationship whereas the CDU/CSU did not favour anything too committed. Nevertheless, the two parties articulated a common platform in their coalition agreement which expressed a continued commitment to the European project in general terms. In particular, it contained a clear and unambiguous commitment to the European constitutional treaty. The coalition agreement also made clear that the new government – to some extent redressing the balance of the Schröder governments that had

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been accused of neglecting them – was planning to pay more attention to the smaller EU member states and to consider their concerns. Furthermore, it expressed the support of the new government for the revised Lisbon strategy. It also acknowledged that societal support for the European project was contingent on cutting back unnecessary bureaucracy and on limiting European legislation to what was really necessary. An unnecessary erosion of the responsibilities of member states was to be avoided. In some ways, Merkel’s European rhetoric seemed to turn away from Schröder’s pragmatism and emphasis on Germany’s national interest and return to Kohl’s view regarding the raison d’être of the European project. During Germany’s Presidency of the EU in 2007, Merkel, like Kohl, expressed the view that European unity continued to be a question of ‘war and peace’ since – linking the past with the present – peace and democracy ‘should never be taken for granted’, even though the EU had made peace in Europe a ‘familiar normality’.53 At the same time, Merkel continued the tradition of pre-Schröder governments by returning to the role of ‘paymaster’ when she helped to achieve a breakthrough in the negotiations over financial arrangements by agreeing to finance a compromise on 17 December 2005.54 It increased her popularity in Poland when she decided to forego one hundred million euros which were meant for German regions in favour of Warsaw.55 Merkel also tried to go beyond the idea that Europe was a question of ‘war and peace’ and give Europe a new rationale. In her government declaration to the Bundestag on 14 December 2006, she asserted that Europe was the concept for peace in the twentieth century and would remain the key concept for the twenty-first century.56 In her view, however, securing peace as a raison d’être for the European project was no longer enough for current generations. She considered the commonalities of EU member states to lie in values such as freedom, justice, democracy, the rule of law and a respect for human rights. According to Merkel, it was this common understanding of basic values that held Europe together internally.57 Merkel’s vision of Europe revolves around a Christian Europe and she expressed her ‘allegiance to Europe’s Christian principles’,58 a vision she had also – albeit unsuccessfully – tried to get formally acknowledged in the constitutional treaty. In her speech as President of the Council at the official ceremony to celebrate the 50th

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anniversary of the signing of the Treaties of Rome, Merkel referred to the centrality of the individual and the inviolability of his/her dignity adding on a personal note that this view of the individual was for her part and parcel of Europe’s Jewish-Christian heritage.59 Rather than linking the rationale for the European project mainly to the Second World War as Helmut Kohl had done, she has linked it to the division of Europe and the freedom that has now been achieved for all of Europe. Pointing out that as a citizen of the GDR she used to live in Europe but not in the Union, she described it as a good fortune for the peoples of Europe to have achieved integration which ensured freedom and made affluence possible. Depicting the Union as a house which, until 1990, she had only seen from the outside, she described it as being even nicer from the inside and said that she never wanted to leave it again.60 Regarding the internal challenges the EU was facing in the aftermath of simultaneous deepening and widening, Merkel took a clear stance. She considered institutional reform to be increasingly necessary because of the large number of member states. Even though efforts had been made with the Treaty of Amsterdam which was signed in 1997 and the Treaty of Nice which was signed in 2001, Merkel considered the provisions in these treaties to be not farreaching enough to cope with the enlarged EU. At the same time as emphasising the need for internal reform of the EU before any further enlargement could take place, Merkel also emphasised the need to strengthen and further enhance its neighbourhood policy which had been launched in 2003. She made it very clear that in her view further enlargement – which countries such as Britain traditionally have favoured – was impossible without a solution to the constitutional issue. In her speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg she also pointed out the importance of a road map for the constitutional treaty and declared the ‘period of reflection’ to be over. Apart from containing a commitment to resolving the single most important issue, the constitutional treaty, the programme for the German EU Presidency ‘Europe – Succeeding together’ was comprehensive and ambitious. In her government declaration to the Bundestag on 14 December 2006, Merkel made clear that in her view the success of enlargement depended on making the EU more attractive and efficient. She expressed her commitment to the European economic

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and social model and – no doubt as part of a charm offensive to bring Europe closer to its citizens – to cut red tape in the Union. She also stated the need for an attractive and permanent neighbourhood policy in order to allow closer cooperation with those countries that could not become members of the EU themselves. She also emphasised the importance of Germany’s economic recovery since, in her view, Germany could only have influence on the development of the EU if it was economically strong. Her strongest commitment, however, related to the constitutional treaty. Merkel made it very clear that she would consider it as a missed historical opportunity (‘historisches Versäumnis’) if no result regarding the political substance of the constitutional treaty was reached by the European Parliament elections in 2009. Even though this was a difficult task since it required the accommodation of very different interests, there were no other highly divisive items on the agenda during Germany’s EU Presidency in 2007 such as further enlargement or budget negotiations.61 Angela Merkel managed to resolve the European Union’s constitutional crisis even though the result of her negotiations, the Reform Treaty, was to experience considerable problems during the ratification process. The constitutional treaty was resurrected under the title Reform Treaty (or Treaty of Lisbon since it was signed there in December 2007) which contained 90 per cent of the original at least in terms of substance with the main changes being for the most part merely of a symbolic nature. The treaty was not to be called a constitution and was not, as originally planned, to replace all existing treaties but rather to reform them. It did not contain any references to European symbols such as the flag and the anthem even though they can continue to be used. Rather than establishing the post of an EU Foreign Minister, it kept the post of High Representative as introduced in the Treaty of Amsterdam. Breaking the deadlock over the constitutional treaty was probably Merkel’s greatest achievement during her Presidency. The Reform Treaty contained a lot of the original constitutional treaty and therefore went beyond the ‘lowest common denominator’ that some had feared as an outcome.62 Its substance was preserved whereas a lot of its symbolism was omitted. And even though it was not a constitution, it had resolved key issues and most importantly, it allowed the EU to move on.

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At the EU summit in December 2008, Merkel also showed that she was not afraid to pursue Germany’s national interest even if that meant that Germany would become – at least in the short term – isolated in the European Union. Trying to protect Germany’s heavy industry sector which is larger than that of Britain and France combined, at the summit in December 2008 she did not shy away from revising her own position – reneging on her reputation as ‘climate chancellor’ – in order to protect the industry’s interests in the climate deal. In view of the difficult economic circumstances she prioritised the protection of jobs in Germany’s heavy industry over environmental concerns and over the EU’s agenda to pass a package of emission regulations. The headline in the Guardian which reported on this read: ‘EU Giant isolated as Merkel puts Germany first.’63 This obviously came as a surprise, as Timothy Garton Ash put it: ‘It’s nothing new that France and Britain are behaving like France and Britain. ... What’s new is that Germany is now behaving like France and Britain.’64 Merkel also put Germany’s national interest first when she initially showed reluctance to join the other major European powers with a new stimulus package to fight the economic downturn in 2008–09. It caused the French press to dub her ‘Madam Non’ and Joschka Fischer to claim that Merkel was risking a weakening of Europe.65 The German government did however eventually put together another package worth 40 billion euros, nearly four times as much as the value of the first one which had amounted to only 12 billion euros. In contrast to Schröder, she has not developed a strong bond with France even though there have been a number of joint initiatives. Differences over a number of issues became apparent and she took a strong stand against Sarkozy’s plans to develop a Mediterranean Union led by France, for instance. But as Mahncke has pointed out rather than these initial differences leading to a crisis they led to a joint Franco-German paper which was put to the other member states for discussion.66 As one official suggested, however, the Germans ‘hate the feeling that they wake up in the morning and have no idea what Sarkozy will do that day. They really hate it.’67 The end of the deadlock over the European constitution and the strong economic performance of several European countries seemed to have had a positive effect on attitudes towards the European Union during the time of Germany’s EU Presidency. The national

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Eurobarometer report based on data gathered in April/May 2007, the height of the German Presidency, came to the conclusion that the European Union had overcome its ‘confidence crisis’. It was the first time for quite a while that image and future of the European Union had been evaluated more positively again by Europeans in general. Germany in many cases even showed a more pronounced positive trend and was above the European average, even though the east remained reluctant to show positive attitudes. Whereas on average, 57 per cent of Europeans supported EU membership of their country (up by 4 per cent from the previous year), 65 per cent of Germans supported it (up by 7 per cent from the previous year).68 Arguably the most serious challenge to post-unification Germany’s continued Europeanism, however, came in the form of a ruling by the German Federal Constitutional Court on the Lisbon Treaty (initially referred to as Reform Treaty), announced on 30 June 2009.69 A number of people brought forward a complaint which argued that the Lisbon Treaty – aimed at making decision-making in the EU more effective and appropriate to the enlarged European Union of 27 members – was incompatible with the German Basic Law.70 The main criticisms put to the Constitutional Court through the constitutional complaints procedure revolved around the claim that the Treaty – due to the increase of competences it envisaged for Brussels – worsened the European Union’s democratic deficit and thus further eroded German national sovereignty. In particular, it was argued that the Lisbon Treaty violated the principles of representative democracy because it undermined the power of the German parliament. The complainants further claimed that the Treaty constituted a violation of Article 38 (1) of the Basic Law since that granted German citizens the right to participate in elections and with their vote contribute to the legitimisation of state authority and influence the exercise of this authority. The transfer of powers to the EU thus violated this right since it denied individuals the chance to contribute to the legitimisation and the exercise of state authority. This resulted in the principle of democracy being infringed in two ways, according to the claimants: firstly, because the competences of the Bundestag would be undermined and secondly, because this would result in a lack of democratic legitimisation at the level of the EU. The complainants further argued that the ‘flexibility clause’ of the Treaty meant that Brussels could expand its powers more and more without involving national parliaments.

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Even though the Court ruled the Treaty as constitutional, the 147-pages long ruling contained a lot of caveats. As former Foreign Secretary Joschka Fischer pointed out, it read more like a justification for not accepting the Treaty as compatible with the German Basic Law.71 Its emphasis on national sovereignty and identity was striking and even though the Court considered the Lisbon Treaty to be compatible with the Basic Law, it demanded that the role of the German parliament be strengthened to ensure that the democratically elected representatives of the German people would continue to be involved in future decision-making. The Act Extending and Strengthening the Rights of the Bundestag and the Bundesrat in European Union Matters therefore had to be rewritten before ratification could take place. Even though Fischer’s view – that the way in which Germany’s highest court evoked the spectre of a European ‘federal state’ in its ruling reminded one of the traditional Euroscepticism of the British Conservative Party72 – might be exaggerated, there is no doubt that the ruling articulated a rather critical stance and also defined clear limits for further European integration. It made clear that European unification was not to be realised in a way that infringed on the German nation-state’s ability to shape the economic, social and cultural conditions of its citizens. The Court even set out key policy areas (criminal law, the use of force, fiscal decisions, welfare provisions, decisions of cultural importance such as family law) that it considered should remain within the remit of the nation-state (Paragraph 252 of the ruling). In more general terms, it asserted that the ultimate power to confer competences (Kompetenz-Kompetenz) should remain with the member states and that the constitutional and political identity of the member states would have to be preserved. As ‘masters of the Treaties’ (Herren der Verträge) the member states rather than European institutions would be responsible for the general direction of the politics and policies of the Union. In short, the Court declared: ‘Germany will remain a sovereign state and therefore legal actor of international law’ (Paragraph 298 of the ruling). The Court also asserted its own position and made clear that as long as the Basic Law was valid (and it could only be replaced if approved by the German people as stipulated in Article 146 of the Basic Law), it – rather than the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg – would have the final say over constitutional questions

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and potential tensions between national sovereignty and an increase in European competences. Whether the ruling means ‘the end of European integration as we know it’ as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung suggested or it merely ‘sabotage[s] the engine a bit’ as Die Tageszeitung proposed remains to be seen.73 There is no doubt, however, that in view of the ruling the future scope of German governments can be tightly controlled by the German parliament. Bearing in mind, however, that in 2008 the German Bundestag accepted the Lisbon Treaty with a majority of approximately 90 per cent (515 members of the Bundestag voted in favour of it, 58 voted against it and there was 1 abstention) and the Bundesrat passed it with 66 votes in favour and 3 abstentions, the major challenge to Germany’s continued Europeanism is unlikely to come from its parliament. It is more likely that German governments will tread more carefully with regard to further European integration in anticipation of further appeals to the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe which with this ruling clearly sided with those who fear a loss of national sovereignty and identity in the process of further integration. Furthermore, it will allow German political elites – if they wish – to hide behind the ruling and insist on German national sovereignty. It provides a convenient excuse to leave behind notions of a post-national identity and multi-level governance and embrace a reassertion of the German nation or even ‘regressive nationalism’. The ruling unambiguously asserted Germany’s sovereignty and identity and clearly prioritised it over achieving an ever closer European Union, adding a legal basis and legitimacy to future challenges to Germany’s traditional ‘reflexive Europeanism’. As Murkens has pointed out ‘[i]nstead of a ground-breaking defence of Germany’s historical constitutional commitment to European integration, the Lisbon decision is breath-taking evidence of a renaissance of the sovereignty of the state and of a pre-constitutional ceiling to European integration’.74

Germany and Europe in the twenty-first century In spite of Schröder’s notions of Germany’s ‘voluntary Europeanism’, post-unification governments have continued to be highly pro-integrationist. The red-green coalition supported all the key European initiatives wholeheartedly and under Angela Merkel’s

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chancellorship Germany has continued to be at the heart of Europe. Merkel’s rhetoric and her attempts to give the European Union a common post-Cold War raison d’être testify to a Euro-idealism which is on a par with that of Helmut Kohl. Her commitment to Europe has further been illustrated by her efforts to get the European Union out of the deadlock over the constitution. At the same time, she has made further enlargement contingent on successful institutional reform. In contrast to British governments, for example, German governments continue to see the European Union as more than just a common market. Although Schröder’s approach to Europe did introduce a new pragmatism, he also envisaged a Europe that went beyond mere economics and considered the cultural identity of the peoples of Europe to be enriched by a European dimension.75 A pro-European consensus continues to exist among political elites with only the Left Party and the parties on the far right being consistently critical of European integration. Unlike other European countries, Germany does not have institutionalised antiEuropeanism in its major political parties. Eurobarometer data also indicate that although support for the European project is not as firm as it used to be, there is still a strong commitment in general, particularly when compared with the EU average. The claim of the Eurobarometer report published in 2007 that the European Union had moved beyond its confidence crisis and that Europeans were more positive again turned out to be short-lived. The economic ‘feelgood factor’ identified in 2007 during the period of only a year turned into a ‘feel-bad factor’ under the impression of the economic crisis of 2008–09. This did not seem to have had a negative effect on general perceptions of the EU in Germany, however. More than the other member states, Germany has continued to be fairly positive about EU membership. Sixty-four per cent of respondents declared themselves to be in favour of membership compared with a European average of only 53 per cent. Similarly, 48 per cent of Germans continued to have a positive image of the European Union compared with an EU average of only 43 per cent.76 Nevertheless, the Berlin Republic’s relationship with Europe differs from that of the Bonn Republic in a number of ways. Most significantly, expressions of national interest have become much more pronounced. Whereas until the end of the 1990s, very often German and European interests were considered to be identical, this seems to have

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changed. The more confident approach adopted by the Schröder/ Fischer governments has increased Germany’s room for manoeuvre and set in motion a process which – though not challenging Germany’s continued commitment to Europe in principle – allows it to articulate and pursue its national interest more freely than previously. But even though Schröder emphasised Germany’s national interest much more than previous leaders had dared to do, in actual practice his government continued to be integration-friendly – albeit with a keener eye on the impact that further integration initiatives might have on Germany. The transitional arrangement regarding labour migration from the new eastern European members illustrates the new pragmatic approach of Germany’s Europeanism very well. Although Germany keenly pursued eastern enlargement, it safeguarded German interests by ensuring that the German labour market would not be faced with a sudden influx of workers from the new accession countries in the east. Similarly and to the surprise of other EU member states, Angela Merkel’s initiatives during the economic crisis in 2008–09 also left no doubt that she put Germany’s interests first. Joschka Fischer subsequently criticised Angela Merkel’s European policy for ‘using Europe to further the German national interest’.77 This is nothing new, however. Even though Germany’s national interest was hardly ever articulated explicitly during the Berlin Republic, it was certainly furthered by European integration. It is only now that Germany has come out of the shadow of its Nazi past, has regained full sovereignty and is united again that national and European interests diverge. German leaders are shedding the pretence that German and European interests are identical and have fewer and fewer qualms about acknowledging this. Even though there is a continued pro-European consensus, expressions of Germany’s national interest are also accompanied by a greater readiness to voice criticism. During the German EU Presidency in 2007, for example, former German President Roman Herzog in a jointly authored article with Lüder Gerken, then Director of the Centre for European Policy Studies, warned of an increasing centralisation of power in Brussels at the expense of the member states and their national parliaments. Furthermore, Herzog demanded more courage in making public criticism.78 Among political elites as well as society at large, the European dimension of German collective identity is not as pronounced as

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it used to be now that an identification with the German nation and the pursuit of Germany’s national interests have moved into the foreground again. Schröder’s assertive approach to a more positive identification with the German nation as discussed in Chapter 1 has contributed to making the European dimension increasingly redundant for the purpose of collective identity. Germany no longer relies on Europe to provide a kind of ersatz identity since it seems to be once again at ease with the national paradigm and its symbols. The Federal Constitutional Court’s ruling on the Lisbon Treaty with its emphasis on the preservation of German sovereignty and identity further illustrates the re-nationalisation of Germany’s European policy that has taken place recently. At the same time as Germany is showing less reluctance to express its national interest explicitly and is becoming more outspoken in its criticism, it seems to be losing its ‘leadership avoidance reflex’.79 Whereas previously it might have led surreptitiously and usually in combination with France, the reluctance to openly show leadership also seems to have disappeared. And just as Germany behaves and portrays itself as a leader in Europe, other countries increasingly look to Germany for leadership. A number of initiatives such as Angela Merkel’s efforts to end the EU’s constitutional crisis and her conduct during the Greek economic crisis in 2010 testify to this. Germany’s new leadership role is also evidenced in the rhetoric of political elites. At the end of 2008, Joschka Fischer – usually quite sensitive to Germany’s historical legacy and its implications – accused Germany under Angela Merkel ‘of failing as a leading power in Europe’.80 Similarly, in his Berlin Address in 2009, Federal President Horst Köhler asserted that ‘Germany as the largest economy in the European Union has a leadership role to play.’81 At the same time as Germany is more confident about expressing its national interest and increasingly assumes a leadership role, its economic problems mean that it is not the economic powerhouse of Europe anymore and cannot rely on its ‘soft power’ as much as it used to. Compromises in the name of further European integration at Germany’s expense are not as easy to achieve since Germany is much more constrained by its own budgetary problems. Thus Germany has undergone a shift from, as one commentator described it, ‘reliable paymaster to a surprisingly recalcitrant partner’.82 Nevertheless, there have been instances especially under Merkel’s chancellorship

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which reverted to previous ‘paymaster’ practices. It has become much more difficult for German governments, however, to justify decisions that are costly for Germany at a time of economic crises when unemployment is high and the welfare state has experienced significant cuts. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s worry that Germany was ‘more rather than less likely to dominate’ within the European framework since she expected a united Germany to be ‘simply too big and powerful to be just another player in Europe’83 does not seem to have been unfounded. But even though Germany has exercised considerable influence over the shape of the new Europe in terms of institutions as well as size, the financial burden of unification and its economic problems have so far constrained its power. In spite of the economic constraints of the Berlin Republic, however, it has played a more assertive and central role in Europe than the Bonn Republic would have ever dared to pursue openly. This is likely to make Germany’s position in Europe more difficult in future. A more powerful Germany in a larger and more diverse European Union will find it harder if not impossible to keep its ‘equidistance’ between Europe and the United States. The Iraq War has already given an indication of this. As the next chapter will discuss in more detail, it can no longer be taken for granted that German governments will manage to straddle the difference between Europe and the United States.

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5 Germany’s New Foreign Policy Identity

The overall goals of West Germany’s foreign policy after 1945 were rehabilitation and, with the onset of the Cold War, protection from the Soviet Union. Within this framework, a foreign policy identity emerged over the lifetime of the Bonn Republic which – like West German identity in more general terms – was strongly influenced by the legacy of the Third Reich and the Second World War. In view of the material as well as moral bankruptcy of Germany in 1945 and foreign occupation in the immediate aftermath of the war, West Germany’s foreign policy did not have much room for manoeuvre. It was constrained by the external pressures of the bipolar world and its geopolitical position as well as the restrictions imposed by the Western Allies. Domestically, its scope was restricted by norms and values which emerged after 1945 in opposition to the Nazi period. These norms and values dominated the environment in which decisions were made and shaped the public and political discourse regarding West Germany’s international role in general as well as its foreign policy in particular. The foreign policy consensus that emerged during the lifetime of the Bonn Republic was carried across party lines by the political elites as well as the rank and file party members and society at large. Although the opposition at times disagreed strongly with the government of the day in terms of its foreign policy, changes in government were usually preceded by the opposition adopting the government’s foreign policy stance before taking up office themselves.1 The main pillars of this foreign policy consensus included – most importantly especially in the early days – a clear and unambiguous 115

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Western orientation (Westbindung) which was later complemented by a constructive policy towards the East (Ostpolitik). It also included a strong commitment to multilateralism which was evidenced in particular through membership of the EEC/EC/EU and NATO. Whereas other countries such as Britain and France tended to prioritise one over the other at times, West Germany by and large succeeded in balancing its European and Atlanticist commitments. One of the golden rules of the Bonn Republic’s foreign policy was never to get into a situation where it would have to choose between Paris and Washington.2 Although most areas of post-war West German politics and society were to some extent influenced by the legacy of the Nazi past, it was particularly obvious with regard to foreign policy. All of West Germany’s underlying norms and values were a result of the rejection of the Nazi period and the Second World War. First and foremost, this meant a rejection of any kind of nationalism in the international arena. This was accompanied by a widespread antimilitarist consensus which existed among political elites of all the main parties as well as in society at large. Thus West Germany’s status as a ‘civilian power’ was never really challenged during the lifetime of the Bonn Republic. Whereas ‘total war’ had dominated the period before 1945, it was ‘total peace’ that was to dominate the post-war period.3 West German governments renounced the use of military force and could rely on an underlying antimilitarist culture in society to support them. In view of Germany’s contribution to history in the first half of the twentieth century, West Germany’s allies, too, were quite happy to accept its antimilitarism. In general terms, West Germany’s foreign policy approach was thus characterised by a renunciation of power politics and even though the Federal Republic eventually gained ‘soft power’ through economic and social advancement, it was – as Henry Kissinger described it – ‘economically a giant but politically a dwarf’. In terms of style, West Germany’s foreign policy was characterised by modesty, moderation, self-limitation and a ‘culture of restraint’ and what Paterson et al. diagnosed as a ‘leadership avoidance reflex’.4 The Bonn Republic by and large accepted a position of subordination with regard to its key bilateral relationships. As Adenauer had pointed out, ‘[w]e Germans should be clear, that we really do not count for very much in world history at the present time’ and

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when considering the international status of other countries such as Britain he acknowledged that ‘we Germans are really not in the same class’.5 In later years, this was not always accepted without resentment even though it was not necessarily articulated by German chancellors while still in office. In an interview in November 1980, Willy Brandt, for example, called it a dated idea to think that security policy merely consisted of fulfilling the demands of American presidents.6 Two years later, he became even more outspoken when he suggested that it was inappropriate for a German chancellor ‘to hop around like a scared rabbit’ and asserted the need for Germany to shed its ‘minority complex’ and stop worrying whether somebody in an office in Washington was ‘frowning’.7 Referring explicitly to the legacy of Germany’s Nazi past, Helmut Schmidt – in the context of the negotiations of the sale of Leopard 2 tanks to Saudi Arabia and the negative reactions it had caused in Israel and elsewhere – reportedly said that West German foreign policy should no longer be ‘held hostage’ to Auschwitz.8 In spite of these expressions of resentment, however, West Germany’s foreign policy consensus was never fundamentally challenged between 1949 and 1990. West German governments continued to work within the parameters set by the bipolar world and the normative environment that emerged in opposition to the Third Reich’s destructive nationalism and relentless militarism. By becoming a reliable and predictable partner which was tightly integrated into the Western alliance system, West Germany thus managed to regain acceptance in the circle of civilised nations and ensured its security in the Cold War world.

The 1990s: Challenges and choices Although the Kohl governments of the 1990s tried very hard to convey the impression of continuity in foreign policy, it became clear very soon that united Germany was unlikely to be able to continue in the foreign policy traditions of the West German state. Whereas the role of the two Germanies had been clearly defined by the bipolar division of the Cold War world, united Germany faced a very different environment with the old certainties and dependencies gone and new challenges and threats emerging. The fall of the Wall

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and unification did not only mean the re-emergence of a sovereign Germany with potentially more power at the heart of a Europe which was no longer divided into two blocs. It also meant that Germany had lost the strategically important central geopolitical position which it had occupied during the Cold War. The key question was therefore whether and to what extent united Germany’s foreign policy could and would remain faithful to the consensus that had dominated the foreign policy identity of the Bonn Republic. Regardless of whatever notions of Germany’s international role might have existed within Germany, it became increasingly clear in the 1990s that the international community had no interest in Germany remaining a political ‘dwarf’. Rather than showing anguish at the thought of a re-militarisation of German foreign policy – although any increase in German power clearly bothered some of Germany’s European neighbours, most notably Margaret Thatcher’s Britain – its allies and especially the United States were more worried about the issue of ‘free-riding’. The Gulf War in 1991 and the crises in the Balkans throughout the 1990s made it clear that only Washington had the military capabilities and the necessary network to solve the crises. This was to become all the more irritating for the United States as Europe was growing ‘financial muscle’ but still requiring ‘American leadership to preserve its unprecedented peace and prosperity’.9 There were suggestions that the United States would ‘tire of playing sheriff’ unless its NATO allies actively joined it in military operations in the Middle East. It was going to be a matter of ‘out of area or out of business’.10 Thus, George H.W. Bush’s offer in May 1989 for Germany and the United States to become ‘partners in leadership’ clearly had a flip side. Not only was Germany to play a larger role internationally, but it was also to accept the duties that would accompany it and participate in military campaigns if necessary. It became quite obvious that the Berlin Republic was not going to be able to indulge in the peacefulness and provincialism of its predecessor. Under the heading of ‘burden-sharing’, Germany’s international partners started to put pressure on Germany to contribute to peace-making and peace-keeping missions in proportion to its size and importance. Rejecting what was known as the Kohl Doctrine – that German soldiers should not be deployed where the Wehrmacht had been in the Second World War – UN General Secretary Boutros Boutros-Ghali in a speech in 1993 suggested that it was wrong to

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think that the international community resented the deployment of German soldiers.11 This was not mirrored by a domestic consensus, however. As Gerhard Schröder has pointed out in his memoirs, the remark of the UN Secretary General was by and large met with incomprehension in Germany since at this point in time there was no awareness that German unification and the emergence of a larger Germany had resulted in more extensive international responsibilities. Whereas this was largely accepted abroad, the German population had yet to be convinced, according to Schröder.12 There were also voices within Germany, however, that pointed out the need for change. A speech by Federal President Roman Herzog only five years after unification made this clear. Addressing the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik (German Council on Foreign Relations), Herzog suggested that German foreign policy had entered a new phase. According to the German President, this new phase was characterised by a ‘globalisation of German foreign policy’.13 Herzog argued that the end of ‘free-riding’ had come and that Germany – whether it liked it or not – had to face up to the increased responsibility that resulted from unification or else it would inevitably not only harm others but also itself and would internationally simply not be taken seriously in the long run. He explicitly condoned the use of military force if all other possibilities had been exhausted. Rejecting the Kohl government’s practice during the Gulf War in 1991, Herzog stated clearly that this role meant more than the mere use of a chequebook and potentially meant risking human lives. Like Schröder, Herzog also identified a lack of awareness of this: ‘We in Germany are still in the process of developing a foreign policy culture which matches that.’14 For Germany this increasing international pressure meant that two of the key pillars of its traditional foreign policy became increasingly incompatible. In the post-Cold War world Germany’s strong commitment to multilateralism, which suggested it had to participate, was increasingly at odds with its post-1945 antimilitarism, which meant that the use of military force was difficult to push through the German left’s own ranks as well as society at large.15 In addition to this, there were also constitutional and structural constraints on German military involvement. Although the Bundeswehr – traditionally an army whose main task was national defence – had

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contributed to humanitarian missions of the UN since 1960, until the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court in July 1994, participation in military missions outside of NATO territory, however minor, were always contentious. In a first ruling in 1993 the Federal Constitutional Court had legitimised German involvement by refusing to prohibit German soldiers from manning AWACS flights over Bosnia. Two further rulings in 1994 brought final clarification by confirming that German participation in out-of-area military missions was perfectly compatible with the German constitution provided it took place within a multilateral framework and had the backing of the German Bundestag. Even though the constitutionality of German military involvement had been confirmed with the final ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court in July 1994, there was still a lack of awareness within Germany as to the new role and responsibilities demanded at home and abroad. After all, in the context of unification German political elites had done everything possible to assure their European neighbours and key allies as well as their own citizens that united Germany’s foreign policy would be characterised by continuity rather than change. The first all-German government under Helmut Kohl’s chancellorship was already faced with the dilemma of on the one hand wanting to show solidarity in line with its multilateral commitments and prove itself as a reliable ally by supporting joint efforts to liberate Kuwait and on the other hand trying to avoid alienating the strong antimilitarist strand in German political culture. Kohl and his Defence Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg still managed to evade increasing pressure on Germany to participate militarily by arguing that the Basic Law did not allow German military participation outside of NATO territory and got away with providing only financial and logistical support. The right-of-centre German government found itself under considerable pressure to justify its general approval of military action and Germany’s – albeit rather limited – contribution. This was done by reminding the German public at large but also the political left of the central role the United States had played in German history after 1945, the Berlin airlift, the security guarantees it had given in view of communism in general and above all, US support for German unification in spite of European opposition. Nevertheless, the SPD maintained its

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traditional anti-war stance in spite of Iraq’s violation of international law and human rights. It was only in 1996 that the Social Democrats changed their position and adopted a more flexible approach to the use of military force. Iraq’s scud missile attacks on Israel had already made some on the German left seriously question the viability of a continued antimilitarist stance. Events in the Bosnian civil war like the taking hostage of UN peacekeepers and their use as human shields against NATO attacks as well as massacres carried out by Bosnian Serbs in so-called safe havens established by the UN in 1993 convinced many on the German left, even among the Greens, that the continuation of a rigid pacifist policy would result in more atrocities – and thus guilt and responsibility – than military action. Foreign Secretary Joschka Fischer played a key role in convincing key sections of the German Greens that military action was necessary to avoid more bloodshed. In an open letter entitled ‘The catastrophe in Bosnia and the consequences for our party’ to his party on 30 July 1995, Fischer asked the Greens to get used to the idea that UN ‘safe havens’ needed to be protected with military force. Throughout the Balkan wars of the 1990s, the use of military force in order to prevent atrocities thus became increasingly acceptable to the main political parties although not to society at large. And by the time the next major challenge for German foreign policy appeared on the horizon – the crisis over Kosovo – signs of a new consensus had begun to emerge regarding the necessary means with which to tackle it. Germany had slowly started to mutate from a security consumer to a security exporter even if this involved military means.

The end of the post-war consensus? At the end of the 1990s, many academics concluded that the foreign policy of the Berlin Republic was characterised by continuity rather than change. Although there had been suggestions that Germany should play a more participatory role in international affairs, the overall dominant impression was that German foreign policy had largely remained the same. It was only under the red-green coalition which came to office in 1998 that change became more apparent. Since then, German foreign policy has shown an increasingly

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participatory approach which also includes the use of force and in general terms, greater assertiveness.16 When the new coalition came to power, it was not immediately clear that German foreign policy would be one of the areas that would be marked by a significant degree of change. Throughout the 1990s, the Social Democrats had struggled to articulate a foreign policy that took into consideration the new post-Cold War realities. During the election campaign of 1994, foreign policy issues had been largely avoided and the 100-Day-Programme of the SPD for a Just and Peaceful Germany (100-Tage-Programm der SPD für ein gerechtes und friedliches Deutschland) did not contain anything on foreign, security and European policy matters.17 The SPD’s programmatic debates regarding foreign policy started only in the mid-1990s when an article published by one of its members of parliament, Dieter Schloten, demanded a discussion regarding a reorientation of Germany’s future international role. The initiative resulted in a new foreign and security policy which was confirmed at the party conference in Hanover in December 1997 and which laid the foundation for the foreign policy of the Schröder government.18 Concerns were expressed in Germany and abroad as to whether Germany would remain a reliable partner in Europe as well as with regard to its transatlantic relations under a red-green coalition. In his first government declaration on 10 November 1998, Schröder responded to these concerns and confirmed the new government’s commitment that Germany would remain a reliable partner in Europe and the world. He also addressed the notion of anti-Americanism traditionally associated with the German left and explicitly asserted the new government’s commitment to transatlantic relations. Regarding united Germany’s role in general, he said: ‘We do not presume to act as a leading power internationally or, in crises, pursue initiatives without consulting our partners.’19 The Greens – having entered a coalition government at federal level for the first time in their history – also added a considerable degree of uncertainty in the eyes of many people. After all, it was only a few months before the Green Party entered government that their party conference demanded that NATO should be disbanded. Asked whether his emphasis on continuity during his first visits abroad was an indication that Germany’s partners were worried about the redgreen coalition, the new Foreign Secretary Joschka Fischer responded

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that he indeed had had to clarify on these occasions that Germany would not lose its predictability regarding its commitment to Europe as well as to transatlantic relations.20 As it turned out, continuity in terms of strong transatlantic ties meant change in terms of policy and under the red-green coalition, Germany went from rehabilitation to emancipation. It became clear very soon that Germany’s self-perception – as represented by the new red-green coalition – provided a different basis for its international role. This new self-perception was largely due to a novel way of integrating Germany’s Nazi past into its historical and national consciousness. The new generation of leaders went some way to acknowledge the continued presence of the past in contemporary Germany and fully accepted the responsibilities arising from it (see Chapter 1). Paradoxically, however, this unambiguous acknowledgement resulted in an approach to foreign policy which was much less bound by the constraints that the same past used to impose on previous German governments. The acknowledgement of German responsibility and guilt was thus seen – as Schröder had envisaged – to empower rather than restrict Germany’s foreign policy options under red-green. This became very apparent when Schröder spoke of ‘the confidence of a grown-up nation’ which did not need to feel either superior or inferior towards others but which faced up to its history and the responsibility arising from it and in spite of its preparedness to engage with it, looked towards the future.21 In a similar fashion, his Foreign Secretary Joschka Fischer evoked the presence of the past at the same time as limiting its influence on the present: ‘We must always reckon with the presence of our past. ... We must live with the power of collective memory, and acknowledging these factors provides the best basis for shaping the future together.’22 Collective memory of Germany’s Nazi past thus became less prescriptive. It neither prevented the new government from representing a much more confident Germany, nor did it prevent the re-emergence of the use of military force as an instrument of German foreign policy. In fact, references to Germany’s Nazi past were used in order to justify the use of military force in the Kosovo War23 which started after the massacre of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo by Serbs and a failed attempt to work out a peaceful agreement at Rambouillet. NATO air strikes began on 24 March 1999 in order to force Slobodan Miloševic’ to sign the agreement which was to limit the influence of the Serbs

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in Kosovo. ‘Operation Allied Force’ lasted for over 70 days and came to an end at the beginning of June when Miloševic’ agreed to a peace plan. On 6 June 1999, the German Bundestag agreed that 8500 German soldiers should take part in the NATO-led ‘Kosovo Force’ (KFOR) which was to establish and maintain security in Kosovo in accordance with UN resolution 1244. In Germany, the timing of the decision to go to war fell into both the old Conservative-led coalition as well as the new SPD-led coalition and was therefore made jointly. When the Kohl government lost the election on 27 September 1998 and a red-green coalition received a governing majority, the negotiations were already well under way. When the Bundestag convened on 16 October 1998 (i.e. after the general election but before the election of the Chancellor) to discuss German military participation in Kosovo, 500 (out of 584) members of the Bundestag voted in favour of an involvement of the Bundeswehr. In spite of this large majority, however, emotions ran high and there was significant opposition to the war with members of the red-green government who argued in favour of German military participation being accused of ‘war mongering’.24 Kosovo provided an extremely difficult balancing act for the government between showing united Germany under red-green leadership to be a reliable partner of the western alliance and at the same time convincing critics at home that military action was necessary and that Germany needed to be part of it. There is no doubt that Germany’s standing in the western alliance would have been seriously undermined if Germany had refused to participate, especially since constitutional constraints had by and large been removed by the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court of July 1994.25 In fact, it would have probably raised questions about the future of the western alliance itself. It is remarkable that it was a coalition consisting of Social Democrats and Greens – both containing strong pacifist forces – that found itself in a position of having to pursue this reorientation of German foreign policy towards the use of military force. It would have been difficult enough for the red-green coalition to make itself appear like a reliable partner but the crisis in the Balkans and the apparent necessity of a military response made it even more of a challenge for the Schröder government. In view of the long absence from office of

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the SPD and the fact that the Greens had never been in a coalition at this level, the start of the new coalition was accompanied by calls which seriously questioned their ability to govern, that is, ‘are the Greens able to govern’ (‘Sind die Grünen regierungsfähig?’). Schröder and Fischer had to do their utmost to try to convince their parties of the necessity of the Kosovo War and to keep the coalition intact. Within a few years, things had clearly changed. Although there was no UN mandate due to Russia’s opposition, the German redgreen coalition had given up the traditional pacifist stance of the German left and sent German soldiers into combat for the first time since 1945. Whereas the Kohl government had only reluctantly expressed its support for the military liberation of Kuwait after the Iraqi invasion in the early 1990s which had a clear UN mandate, all parties apart from the PDS supported German participation in the Kosovo War. Nevertheless, there was considerable opposition to the war in all parties as well as society at large. Especially at the beginning it was criticised because it was claimed that not enough effort had gone into diplomacy to prevent a military solution and because it took place without a UN mandate. It was also criticised because it did not seem able to achieve its main aim: to stop atrocities committed by the Serbs. Quite to the contrary, the atrocities committed by the Serbs seemed to intensify with the onset of NATO air strikes and the number of refugees increased after the start of the allied bombing raids. It was a painful process for the two parties in government. The new government’s stance regarding German military participation was justified by a recourse to German collective memory even though the lessons which Germany had drawn from history had clearly changed. Rather than avoiding war at all cost, it was argued, that Germany – because of its history – had a special responsibility to stop atrocities being committed. In contrast to Kohl who had argued that German soldiers should not go where the Wehrmacht had been, Schröder argued that it would be irresponsible if Germany would now let new crimes happen in the Balkans because the Bundeswehr should not go where the Nazis had been.26 Quite to the contrary, Schröder argued, Germany had a special responsibility towards the region because of Germany’s historical guilt in the area. He even suggested that German guilt could be eased if Germany was now involved in stopping new crimes being committed there.27

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The question of guilt was also raised by Erhard Eppler in his contribution to the discussion at the special party conference of the SPD on 12 April 1999. Eppler, a former member of the peace movement, pointed out the dilemma the government faced since, in his view, it would be guilty whichever course of action it took. By committing German troops to military action in Kosovo, however, the government had decided on a course of action which – according to Eppler – ‘made us a little less guilty than if we did nothing’.28 Within the Greens, it was Foreign Secretary Joschka Fischer who was at the forefront of the campaign which aimed at convincing the staunch pacifists in the party that the use of military force against Miloševic’ and his troops was inevitable. For the Greens to accept this was even more agonising than for their coalition partner. For the party that had recruited many of its members from the protest movements of the 1960s, it was very difficult to come to terms with the fact that they were part of a governing coalition that waged a war. At the party conference at Bielefeld in May 1999 after intensive discussions and an incident where Joschka Fischer was hit by red paint thrown by an opponent of war, the Greens accepted NATO policy. Times had changed indeed: ‘By 1999 the Green Party, antiNATO pacifists in the 1980s, embraced a military role for Germany in the Kosovo conflict that even hawks would have considered off limits just ten years earlier.’29 There is no doubt that ethical considerations played a major role in the decision to go to war. As Schröder pointed out in his speech to the Bundestag on 26 March 1999, the main reason in support of war was to stop ‘systematic human rights violations’ and to avoid a ‘human catastrophe’ in Kosovo.30 At the same time, however, and probably more than a right-of-centre government would have been, the red-green coalition was very much under pressure to show itself to be capable of governing and demonstrate that it was a reliable partner. Several weeks into the air war, Chancellor Schröder argued that because of its history, Germany could not afford a Sonderweg (‘special path’) but had to show solidarity with its allies.31 He insisted that the red-green coalition’s decision regarding Kosovo would make it or break it domestically as well as internationally. For him, the question of German military participation in Kosovo had wider implications for united Germany’s new role. According to Schröder,

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his predecessor – so wrapped up in his role as ‘Chancellor of German unity’ – had failed to promote a debate on the implications of German unification with regard to Germany’s international role. As a result, the parties in government as well as those in opposition had settled comfortably into Helmut Kohl’s ‘political feel-good package’ without reflecting on the obligations that a united Germany would have to meet. The decision to participate in the Kosovo War brought these issues to a head and, according to Schröder, this meant that the red-green coalition had to make up for what the Conservatives had neglected to do in the 1990s.32 According to Schröder, the Kosovo War made Germany’s new responsibility brutally clear. The end of the post-war period had come and there was no way Germany could continue to claim a special status: ‘We had to fulfil our obligations towards our allies. Ducking away was not possible.’33 Rather than a clear decision in favour of a return to using military force as a foreign policy instrument, it appears that the red-green coalition felt compelled to comply in order to prove its credentials as a reliable partner. Thus – apart from the atrocities committed by the Serbs – the rationale for German military participation had to do with the survival of the first ever red-green coalition, as Schröder pointed out: ‘Those who entered the cabinet of my government knew that there was no alternative to our involvement in the Kosovo War, if the red-green coalition did not want to admit defeat even before taking on political responsibility.’34 That Germany could not avoid showing solidarity by participating in military action became very obvious within only a few years. Just one day after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington on 11 September 2001, in a speech to the Bundestag, Chancellor Schröder described the attacks as a ‘declaration of war against the free world’ informing the parliamentarians that he had promised President Bush Germany’s ‘unconditional solidarity’. At the same time, Schröder demanded solidarity from everybody who believed in ‘peace and liberty’ whether they were in ‘Germany, Europe or anywhere else in the world.’35 After Schröder’s government declaration on 12 September, the Federal Security Council met and agreed to support an international coalition against terror. Also on 12 September, the UN Security Council condemned the attacks unanimously as a ‘threat to world peace and international security’. Since the attacks originated from outside the United States,

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NATO invoked the collective security guarantees of Article 5 of the Washington Treaty for the first time ever on 2 October 2001. After several ultimatums to the Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden, the head of Al-Qaida who masterminded the attacks on 9/11, the United States started the military campaign ‘Enduring Freedom’ on 7 October 2001. In contrast to the Kosovo War, however, the war against Afghanistan was conducted by a US-led coalition and not NATO. After the experience of ‘war by committee’ over Kosovo, the United States were clearly not prepared to subject themselves to the straitjacket of a multilateral organisation in this important matter. In spite of the campaign being led by the United States, however, it was a multinational operation. The German Chancellor and his Foreign Secretary went on numerous visits to Russia, the Middle East, Central Asia, China, India and Pakistan in order to drum up support for a worldwide coalition against terror. For Schröder as well as Fischer it was clear that the central question regarding Germany’s role was not if it would participate militarily but how.36 Even more strongly than during the Kosovo War, the theme of ‘solidarity’ turned out to be the key argument in favour of German military participation. In addition to the argument of Germany’s multilateral obligations, there was also the issue of German gratitude to the United States. Whereas this used to be part of the rhetorical armour of the German right, references to America’s role in the Berlin airlift, its general security commitment to Western Europe during the Cold War and its supportive role over German unification were now also adopted by the left to argue in favour of participating in military action. Just as over the Kosovo War, it was very difficult to keep the redgreen coalition together. There was opposition to Schröder’s promise of ‘unconditional solidarity’ in his own party as well as the Greens. In the end, Schröder resorted to asking the confidence question to force his decision through the Bundestag. Schröder succeeded but only just: 336 out of 662 parliamentarians voted in his favour. The fact that he linked it to the confidence question meant, of course, that the opposition had to vote against the Chancellor and Germany’s participation in the war against Afghanistan as a matter of principle. Apart from Germany again proving itself as a reliable partner under the leadership of a coalition that was able to govern, Schröder

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pointed out that German military participation also had something to do with Germany’s increased power and final emancipation as an equal partner, when justifying his decision to link the question of Germany’s military participation with the confidence question: Nobody takes the decisions regarding the deployment of German forces lightly. I don’t either. But they are necessary and that’s why they have to be made. With them we fulfill the expectations of our partners and do what is objectively possible and politically responsible. We have to accept: After the epochal changes since autumn 1989 Germany has regained its full sovereignty. With that it has also taken on new duties which our allies remind us of. We have no right to complain about that. Rather, we should be pleased about the fact that since the epochal changes of 1989, we have become equal partners in the community of nations.37 Within a short space of time, Germany had come a long way. According to Schröder, German military participation had achieved the following: ‘We had shown ourselves mature with regard to foreign policy, and made clear that Germany is a force to be reckoned with, when it’s a case of taking on responsibility for the fortunes of the world.’38 Events in 2002 and 2003 showed, however, that Germany’s rediscovered militarism had clear limits. After President Bush’s ‘axis of evil’ speech in January 2002, German political leaders started to speak out against US plans to deal with the terrorist threat with the help of ‘pre-emptive’ strikes. The US National Security Strategy – its key principles also referred to as the Bush Doctrine – was published in September 2002 and its emphasis on the use of pre-emptive strikes and democratic regime change was perceived as far too aggressive by German political leaders. After all, the re-militarisation of German foreign policy was only a few years old and it was one thing to convince German political elites and the German public that German military participation was necessary to avoid further atrocities – as in the case of Kosovo – or to show solidarity in the aftermath of 9/11 with one of its key allies that provided security during the Cold War period – as in the case of Afghanistan. It was another matter, however, to convince the German political leadership and the German public of the necessity of a military attack against Iraq. The evidence

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regarding the existence of weapons of mass destruction and Iraq’s link to Al-Qaida was not considered persuasive – for good reasons, as became apparent in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq.39 Discussions of a German involvement in the war against Iraq also entered the German election campaign in summer 2002. In fact, in contrast to 1998, when foreign policy hardly featured at all, it dominated the campaign in 2002. On 5 August 2002 Schröder warned of a casual approach to going to war and categorically ruled out Germany’s military participation in and financial support of an invasion of Iraq. What was remarkable about Schröder’s rejection was not so much the fact that he ruled out German military participation. The fact that he had had to link Germany’s last military involvement to the confidence question and only narrowly won suggests that it would have been political suicide to try again so soon to make a case for military participation whatever the arguments for war. It would have presented significant problems for his election campaign that was aimed at a continuation of the red-green coalition. Antiwar demonstrations in Germany illustrated quite clearly that it was not going to be a vote winner. There was also the issue that German military capabilities were over-stretched already. Whether indeed Schröder simply used his no to Iraq for electoral gain, as has often been asserted, is difficult to establish and not really of any significance. What is more important for the question of the development of Germany’s foreign policy identity is the effect that it had. Schröder’s no to Iraq in effect emancipated Germany from its key bilateral relationship. Rather than delivering it in a low-profile fashion that would not alienate the American leadership unnecessarily, Schröder confidently emphasised the ‘German way’40 – evoking an association with the German Sonderweg which led to defeat and destruction – and gave it a whole new meaning. Germany was going its own way and – in contrast to its American ally – stood for peace and democracy. Schröder further stressed Germany’s sovereignty vis-à-vis its US ally by asserting that important questions regarding the German nation were decided in Berlin and nowhere else.41 He later suggested that Germany’s military participation in both Kosovo and Afghanistan made it easier to say no to Iraq.42 The Kosovo War and the war against Afghanistan turned out to be key events in determining united Germany’s new international role and in deciding on the parameters of the Berlin Republic’s future

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foreign policy. Both wars contributed considerably towards a reorientation of German foreign policy, in particular with regard to the use of military force. Together with Schröder’s no to Iraq, they were pivotal to freeing the Berlin Republic from the constraints of the Bonn Republic. Although Schröder’s refusal to participate in the invasion of Iraq alienated the United States and clouded German-American relations in its aftermath, it forced America to accept that German cooperation could not be taken for granted and that – in the second decade after unification – Germany had emancipated itself as an equal partner. Assessments of the foreign policy record of the red-green coalition vary considerably with some claiming that Germany had become marginalised during the red-green coalition’s first term in office,43 speaking of its ‘uncertain power’,44 whereas others celebrate Germany’s return to the world stage.45 There is no doubt that the red-green coalition’s foreign policy broke with several key pillars of the post-war consensus. It was characterised by increasing participation and militarisation of German foreign and security policy. German military involvement in Kosovo and the war in Afghanistan clearly broke with post-war West German antimilitarism. It also showed that the new generation of political leaders – in spite of the traditional pacifism of their respective parties – managed to show Germany as a reliable ally that pulled its weight in line with its increased power since unification. Especially in the wake of Schröder’s no to Iraq, many assessments suggested that he had done Germany no favours and actually isolated it from one of its key allies. It was only when it became increasingly clear that the US decision to invade Iraq was built on misinformation and wrong premises that Schröder’s decision was increasingly interpreted as another stepping stone in Germany’s emancipation. Showing much more nationalism in his rhetoric than previous German chancellors had dared, Schröder did not hesitate to promote ‘a German way’. Although the military involvement in Kosovo and Afghanistan showed the red-green coalition’s commitment to multilateralism – even though it was no doubt in part motivated by the coalition trying hard to show itself able to govern – Schröder did not hesitate to act unilaterally, at least initially, in his opposition to the Iraq war. Schröder thus not only alienated Germany’s key ally, but he also broke with one of the Bonn Republic’s golden rules and sided

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with France. Some commentators even suggest that Germany under Schröder in fact led the opposition against the United States.46 In spite of the commitment he expressed to strengthening the United Nations in his government programme47 – the print could hardly have been dry – he rejected German involvement in Iraq under any circumstances, even if there were a UN resolution to support it. Under Schröder’s leadership there were also striking changes in terms of policy style. Self-limitation and modesty and traditional deference towards the United States gave way to assertiveness and more nationalistic rhetoric. Creating an axis between Paris, Berlin, Moscow and Peking in opposition to the stance of the United States might be multilateralism of sorts but it certainly does not indicate the ‘leadership avoidance reflex’ that was identified as a key characteristic of the foreign policy of the Bonn Republic. It meant a clear and explicit rejection of Germany’s traditional subordination to the United States. Most importantly, however, the red-green coalition achieved – under the mantle of taking on responsibility – literally more ‘room for manoeuvre’ through involvement in military action in exchange for more power and influence. Towards the end of the red-green coalition, in May 2005, Germany’s emancipation was illustrated symbolically when Schröder – a first for a German chancellor – attended the VE-Day celebrations in Moscow on the side of the victors.

Consolidating change: ‘Confident modesty’ The new Foreign Secretary in Angela Merkel’s grand coalition, FrankWalter Steinmeier, who had been Chief of Staff of the Chancellery during the Schröder administration, recognised the changes that had taken place when – in his inaugural speech to the Bundestag on 30 November 2005 – he asserted that German foreign policy had undergone a considerable reorientation (Neuorientierung) in the 15 years since unification, supported by all parties in the Bundestag apart from the PDS. Steinmeier quoted Joschka Fischer’s frequently expressed perception of Germany’s traditional self-understanding: ‘We underestimate ourselves.’ Steinmeier explained that his first round of visits abroad had made it quite clear that Germany’s friends and partners had huge expectations of Germany and the new government, expecting it to continue its engagement in Europe, the Balkans,

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Afghanistan and the Middle East, in the fight against international terror and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.48 Only a week earlier, Steinmeier had pointed out that the coalition agreement between the CDU/CSU and the SPD showed a clear commitment to a continuation of red-green foreign policy, that is, the continuation of a foreign policy which respected international law and which actively supported human rights. In particular, he acknowledged ex-Chancellor Schröder’s and Foreign Secretary Fischer’s contribution. They, according to Steinmeier, had reappraised the scope of German foreign policy ‘with courage and judgement’, and under their leadership Germany had gained respect worldwide. Steinmeier also pointed out that Germany had become more relaxed, more self-confident and more open and that he wanted to continue in this tradition.49 In this speech, Steinmeier also explained why the reorientation of German foreign policy had become necessary: ‘Our value in foreign affairs is not determined any more by our role as the (last) outpost of the Western world. That is why we have to see to it ourselves how we can influence developments beyond our borders according to our wishes.’50 In an interview with the Bild am Sonntag on US-German relations in November 2005, Steinmeier was asked whether he thought that Germany would further enhance its role as international peacemaker in future. He responded that he expected that to happen (‘das wird so sein’). Asked more specifically, whether he considered the Holocaust to still confine German foreign policy to a ‘culture of restraint’, he replied: ‘After the end of the Cold War and the new role which many worldwide expect from us, “restraint” is not a suitable concept any more. I would rather phrase it as follows: In view of our own history it can be advisable for us Germans to avoid any degree of boastfulness in relation to others.’51 In an interview in March 2006, Steinmeier promoted what he called ‘confident modesty’ (‘selbstbewusste Bescheidenheit’) as a more suitable approach to German foreign policy.52 Debates surrounding the deployment of the German navy to Lebanon illustrate the new approach very well. Angela Merkel described the Lebanon deployment as having a ‘historical dimension’ indicating that it would be part of a more far-reaching and long-term political and diplomatic engagement of Germany in the region. Her

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Foreign Secretary also made an interesting remark when he claimed in this context that the deployment fitted well into the tradition of German foreign policy of promoting peace, safeguarding peace treaties and preventing expulsions.53 Pace Steinmeier, many people would probably think of the two world wars rather than worldwide peace-making when thinking of Germany’s international role in the last hundred years. Interestingly, there was also considerable societal support for the Lebanon deployment.54 It appears that what used to be the FRG’s ‘basic narrative’, that is, the collective memory of Germany’s Nazi past, has been reduced to an emphasis on human rights. The new assertiveness which emerged under Schröder and has been continued under Chancellor Merkel and her Foreign Secretaries Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Guido Westerwelle might even be combined with a sense of mission: in view of Germany’s own history it feels ‘qualified’ to judge human rights abuses and ‘responsible’ for putting them right. Thus, freedom, human rights and the rule of law have emerged as important themes in the Merkel governments’ foreign policy. In her first government declaration, after having underlined the shared values of the transatlantic partnership – and she lists peace and freedom, democracy and the rule of law, justice and tolerance – Angela Merkel pointed out that being part of this ‘community of values’ (Wertegemeinschaft) also meant not being silent in the face of human rights violations, regardless of who is concerned, be they ever so important trade partners or key partners for stability and security. Similarly, the coalition agreement of 2005 stated: ‘Our foreign and international development policy will not be silent when democracy, freedom, the rule of law and minority rights are under threat.’55 This is confirmed in the coalition agreement of the right-of-centre government formed in 2009.56 Instead of showing some modesty because of Germany’s twentieth-century totalitarian record, Merkel also did not hesitate to criticise both Bush and Putin over questions regarding the rule of law and human rights. She seems to have taken the assertive approach developed under Schröder one big step further – albeit in a less boisterous way – by criticising George W. Bush and the United States over Guantánamo and by lecturing Putin and Russia that human rights needed to be nurtured and observed. During her visit to Moscow in 2007 she met representatives of NGOs in the German Embassy

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who were concerned that new legislation was going to have a negative effect on their initiatives and activities. In fact, Merkel did not even shy away from repeating her criticism of the United States over Guantánamo on the 5th anniversary of 9/11. She also took a clear stance towards China over Tibet.

Germany’s foreign policy identity in the twenty-first century The foreign policy of the Berlin Republic has certainly been characterised by a large degree of continuity in terms of key policies. Germany continues to prefer working within a multilateral framework, favours diplomacy over the use of military force in conflict resolution and continues to foster its key bilateral relationships with France and the United States. More than any other policy area, however, German foreign policy has also undergone a considerable degree of change, as evidenced in Germany’s unilateral recognition of Slovenia and Croatia in the early 1990s, its increasing readiness to use military means and Schröder’s no to Iraq. Germany’s quest to get a permanent seat on the UN Security Council is also indicative of its new self-understanding as a significant global player. There have only been lonely voices like that of Wolfgang Schäuble who – in the context of the UN Security Council seat initiative under the Schröder government in 2004 – accused the redgreen government of a ‘left nationalism’ and a ‘re-nationalisation’ of German foreign policy.57 Similarly, Helmut Schmidt came out against the push for a permanent seat for Germany on the Security Council arguing that it was not in the interest of Germany at all to be involved in every internationally significant decision regarding war and peace and be responsible for its consequences.58 The coalition agreement of the grand coalition of 2005 moderated the tone somewhat by stating that Germany continued to be prepared to take on more responsibility, including a permanent representation on the UN Security Council, but that it continued to strive for a European Union seat on the Council. Similarly, the 2009 coalition agreement confirmed Germany’s commitment to achieving a seat for the EU on the UN Security Council but expressed its desire to gain its own permanent representation on the Council until this can be realised.

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At the beginning of the twenty-first century, collective memory of the Holocaust and the Second World War have lost their predictable grip on Germany’s foreign policy identity. Instead of restricting Germany’s policy options, particularly the use of military force, references to German history are increasingly used to justify a more participatory approach to world affairs with the result that the Bonn Republic’s antimilitarist exceptionalism has been lost. Rather than Germany continuing its ‘culture of restraint’ because of its history, it appears that because of that same history, it now has a special responsibility to intervene militarily. Schröder’s rather novel approach to Germany’s Nazi past which acknowledged guilt and responsibility at the same time as allowing a positive identification with the German nation has resulted in a Germany that is more confident on the international stage. As Kansteiner has pointed out, ‘[p]rominent representations of German guilt and participation in world diplomacy are today dialectically intertwined without forcing German representatives to adopt a special role in international politics’.59 At the same time as having adopted a more internationally active and participatory foreign policy, Germany has also become more independent from the United States than it has ever been. This is accompanied by a more confident style that is not afraid to express Germany’s interests in a much more uninhibited manner. Paradoxically, Germany’s increased confidence is not mirrored by its economic power, however. In fact, the two have experienced diametrically opposed trajectories. While Germany’s assertiveness on the international stage has increased, what used to make up its ‘soft power’, its economy, has been struggling in the first two decades after unification. Frank-Walter Steinmeier has pointed out the importance of domestic issues for Germany’s international standing. Germany will only be able to exercise its influence if it is taken seriously, he asserted. And it will only be taken seriously if domestic problems are being solved.60 Although Germany’s emancipation to a large extent came about as a result of US and allied pressure on Germany to pull its weight, occasionally some ambivalence is expressed abroad regarding its newly emerging role. In an interview in December 2007, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk, for instance, expressed his regret that there were more and more calls for Germany to return to its natural position corresponding with its economic, demographic and

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cultural potentials and more and more comments that suggested that the period of Germany’s self-limitation and regret was coming to an end. Tusk pointed out that it was in fact the self-limitation and critical reflection that it showed which provided the foundation for the renewed trust developed towards Germany in post-war Western Europe and after 1989 also in Poland.61 A Washington Post columnist also expressed the sense of ambiguity felt by other countries towards Germany’s new role when he suggested that ‘Germany’s richly deserved 60-year holiday from leadership abroad is ending sooner than many here would like.’62 Germany’s new foreign policy identity is also not necessarily supported by German society at large. Significantly enhanced international responsibility and a partial re-militarisation of German foreign policy might reflect the political elite’s perception of Germany’s role but attitudes in society still lag behind. Attitudes are still characterised by considerable ambivalence regarding German military involvement. In the First Gulf War in 1991, for example, in spite of numerous anti-war demonstrations all over Germany, surveys showed that a majority of Germans were in favour of military action against Iraq at the same time as expressing the view that they did not want to see German military involvement.63 Post-1945 Germany’s traditional antimilitarism or what Berger has called Germany’s political-military culture64 is still deeply entrenched, even amongst those whose business it is. A recent study has shown that not even members of Germany’s armed forces are necessarily in favour of deployments abroad.65 With the end of the Cold War, Germany’s position has certainly not become any easier. There is significantly more potential for tension because Germany has lost its position of clearly belonging to one bloc and its increased profile makes it all the more difficult. The Iraq war already gave an indication that it will be increasingly tricky for Germany to continue to keep equidistance from France (and the EU) and the United States. In addition, there is the question of how Germany will avoid any see-sawing between east and west in future. As Szabo has suggested, the problem of an unanchored Germany that has to resort to shifting coalitions is back.66 There have already been suggestions that Germany should keep equidistance from Washington and Moscow and examples from recent history suggest that this is unlikely to be easy. Increasing antagonism

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caused by US unilateralism under George W. Bush, as well as the proposed installation of a defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic and discussions of further eastern enlargement of NATO that alienated Russia have already put Germany in a difficult position. The relationship between Barack Obama and Angela Merkel got off to a good start, however. During his visit to Dresden in June 2009, the American President described Germany as ‘a close friend and critical partner’ and the bilateral relationship as crucial not just for Germany and the United States but for the world.67

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Die Vereinigung Deutschlands ist etwas anderes als eine bloße Erweiterung der BRD. (The Unification of Germany is not just a mere enlargement of the FRG) Richard von Weizsäcker, 3 October 1990 Whether President Richard von Weizsäcker actually anticipated the changes that would take place after unification when he made this statement in his speech on the day of Germany’s formal unification is doubtful. Two decades later, however, it has become apparent that united Germany is rather different from the post-national and rather provincial Bonn Republic. The relocation of the seat of the German parliament and government to Berlin in 1999 together with the generational change in the leadership of the year before seemed to have set the Federal Republic free from its historical constraints. Even though its political institutions remained largely the same – the use of Article 23 of the Basic Law to achieve formal unification made sure of that and the Constitutional Commission (Verfassungskommission) which was set up after unification did not make any significant changes either – changes in Germany’s self-perception accompanied by policy change have become increasingly apparent since the end of the 1990s. An examination of the five key areas which used to make up the ‘exceptional’ identity of the Bonn Republic has demonstrated that change rather than continuity has been happening particularly since

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the advent of the red-green coalition in 1998. Rather than reverting to the consensus of the 1980s, the Merkel governments since 2005 have by and large consolidated this change. First of all, this has become very obvious in debates about Germany’s Nazi past. Whereas the debates as to what place it should play in the nation’s consciousness – whether it should be consigned to history or provide a key reference point for Germany’s self-understanding – were still very polarised in the Bonn Republic, official memory since the late 1990s has been characterised by a clear acceptance of Germany’s historical legacy. In contrast to previous interpretations, however, an unambiguous acknowledgement arising from Germany’s Nazi past no longer provides an obstacle to a positive identification with the nation. At the same time, German suffering has been increasingly acknowledged and institutionalised. The Schröder governments’ efforts to institutionalise Holocaust centred memory through the completion of the Holocaust Memorial and the compensation for forced labour have been followed by the Merkel governments’ attempts to institutionalise the memory of German suffering, for example, through a Centre against Expulsions. There is some doubt, however, whether these two memory strands can co-exist to the same extent in future. As Chapter 1 has shown, a number of examples suggest that the Federal Republic’s Holocaust centred memory is increasingly being challenged. Its institutionalisation and globalisation since the 1990s have contributed to its presence in Germany being felt less. Several decades after the end of the National Socialist period, the legacy of Germany’s Nazi past has become part of a European and even global memory trend with ‘lessons’ not just for Germany but for the world. Recent debates about Hitler’s ‘European accomplices’ have further shifted the focus away from the German perpetrators.1 This has resulted in a past that is much more accommodating for identificatory purposes than it has ever been since 1945. The unambiguous acceptance – at least in terms of political rhetoric – of Holocaust centred memory as a key part of Germany’s memory culture, promoted in particular under Schröder’s chancellorship and reinforced under Angela Merkel, accompanied by a greater presence of the discourse on German suffering has allowed Germany ‘to move on’. The Bonn Republic’s ‘post-nationalism’ has become a relic of the past. During the second decade after unification, Germany has become more confident and ‘more German’ again. The best example

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was provided during the World Cup celebrations in 2006 when German national symbols experienced a revival leading some to suggest that a ‘national reawakening’ has taken place. Narratives which celebrate the achievements of post-war German history such as the economic and political reconstruction of the Federal Republic after 1949 and the East German Revolution of 1989 have increasingly emerged as positive ‘narrations of the nation’.2 A degree of German patriotism has clearly become acceptable again.3 Whereas German President Gustav Heinemann (1969–74) made clear that he reserved love for his wife when asked whether he loved his fatherland, Germany’s President Köhler showed no inhibitions to profess a love for his fatherland. And whereas the 1992 edition of ‘Facts about Germany’, produced in cooperation with the German Foreign Office, still claimed that ‘to Germans, nation-state attitudes are a thing of the past’,4 the concept of a post-national republic has now become ‘obsolete’.5 The second major characteristic that defined the Bonn Republic after 1949 was Germany’s division and the resulting ‘national question’. Even though this constituted probably its ‘most exceptional’ characteristic, at least in West German society, division became increasingly accepted and perceived as ‘normal’. Attempts to construct ersatz identities that were devoid of the national element were created in East and West more or less successfully between 1949 and 1990. But even though unification in 1990 settled the national question formally, developments since then have given rise to the impression that a ‘new national question’ has been emerging. Whereas the time of division allowed lamentations of ‘one nation’ being divided into ‘two states’, discussions since unification increasingly assert the existence of ‘two nations’ in ‘one state’. However, politicians’ evocations of the German fatherland and nation – and it is probably no coincidence that the narrative of the nation has become stronger during the second decade after unification when internal divisions have been felt most distinctly – have not been sufficient to bridge differences between east and west regarding standards of living as well as attitudes and political beliefs. Nostalgic reminiscence of life in the two former German states indicates that comfort is found in the divided past rather than the united present. In spite of much stronger assertions of the nation by the political elites in the Berlin Republic, it is characterised by more internal divisions with particularly

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Germans in the east increasingly identifying with their old system. This is in part no doubt due to the rapid demise of the GDR but in part also an expression of strong dissatisfaction with the present. The reasons for East Germans to be keen to join the Federal Republic in 1990 were largely due to dissatisfaction with the material provisions of the SED-state as well as its repressive nature. The attraction of the West German state thus mainly lay in the fact that it provided widespread affluence at the same time as ensuring political liberties. With unification east Germans might have gained the latter but certainly not the former. In view of its economic difficulties, in particular the high unemployment rates, former GDR citizens now live in a Republic that is different from the West Germany they knew before unification. The ‘national question’ that defined the Bonn Republic has thus taken on a different quality in the Berlin Republic. In its new version it is in fact more salient than its old version was in the years before the fall of the Wall. Internal divisions particularly between east and west are thus another key characteristic of the Berlin Republic. United Germany’s economic decline provides the third key area in which the new Republic differs distinctly from the old one. In socioeconomic terms, the history of the Bonn Republic was a success story. Steady economic growth, high employment and monetary and fiscal stability ensured widespread affluence and resulted in increasing support for the democratic system. Pride in the economic performance and the social achievements of the system provided a key part of West German identity between 1949 and 1990. It also provided an outlet to compensate for the difficulty of identifying with the German nation in the post-war period. Due to a ‘reservoir of good will’, as Conradt has described it,6 accumulated during the good times, system support did not suffer during more challenging times. However, increased Europeanisation and globalisation but also the financial costs of unification have put Modell Deutschland increasingly under pressure. Severe economic problems and high unemployment figures mean that the German model has lost its model character. Germans might have achieved ‘unity and freedom’, as Kohl promised in 1990, but they certainly have not all achieved the ‘prosperity and social equality’ that he also pledged. This is felt most painfully in the east where unemployment rates are much higher than in the west. Furthermore, the implementation of the Agenda

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2010 has meant a reform of key provisions of the welfare state. In view of the fact that East Germans’ support for unification was to a large extent based on the output of the system during the lifetime of the Bonn Republic, it is hardly surprising that support for the way democracy works in Germany has dwindled. If the most important conditions for a stable democracy are in fact the support of its citizens and the existence of a national identity, the Berlin Republic does not have a strong case. As it stands, support for democracy has become eroded and east and west are reluctant ‘to imagine’ themselves as part of one national community. At the same time as Germany’s ‘soft power’ has been reduced due to its economic decline, it has asserted itself more strongly on the international stage. A key part of the Bonn Republic’s identity was its commitment to Europe. West German elites and society at large constituted model Europeans who were also prepared to fund compromises if they were in the greater European cause. The arrangement worked for European integration but it also worked for West Germany since it provided it with an opportunity to regain international recognition in the aftermath of the Second World War. The idea of Europe also provided West Germans with the possibility to avoid an identification with the discredited German nation after 1945. Whilst being strongly committed to the European project, West German political elites were careful, however, not to express their national interest explicitly, at the same time as avoiding showing any overt leadership. Although the early post-unification governments under Kohl’s leadership were largely characterised by continuity, a more assertive and pragmatic approach became apparent with the advent of the red-green coalition in 1998. Gerhard Schröder in particular made the case that Germany’s Europeanism was now a matter of choice rather than necessity. He also announced the end of Germany’s role as the ‘paymaster’ of the Union. In a similar vein, more ambivalent attitudes towards European integration have emerged in society at large. Even though Euroscepticism is by no means as institutionalised as in the United Kingdom, for example, the Bonn Republic’s idealism has given way to more pragmatism and a more sober analysis of costs and benefits in the Berlin Republic. The Federal Constitutional Court’s ruling on the Lisbon Treaty might give further impetus to this. The reluctance to show leadership has also disappeared. German political leaders are now quite happy to acknowledge

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their country’s role as the leading power in Europe. In view of the reassertion of the nation in the Berlin Republic, the European dimension is also no longer needed for identificatory purposes. And while the Federal Republic’s conduct is much more assertive than during the Bonn Republic, it is not the economic powerhouse of Europe anymore and its own budget problems make it more difficult to finance compromises. In spite of all this, however, Germany has remained highly integrationist and to a degree there has even been a return under Merkel to financing compromises to resolve political stalemate. Probably the most important change has taken place in Germany’s foreign policy identity which in the Bonn Republic was characterised by a deferential attitude towards its key allies, self-limitation and a strong commitment to multilateralism. Strong antimilitarism was also deeply anchored in different levels of society. The Bonn Republic successfully managed to balance its European and its transatlantic commitments. Even more so than on the European stage, it was reluctant to exercise leadership that could evoke the historical memory of the Third Reich. Although these characteristics were obviously more pronounced in the early years of its existence, they remained in place throughout the lifetime of the Bonn Republic. The question of continuity or change in post-unification Germany’s foreign policy was probably the most crucial issue arising from unification. Kohl did his best to reassure Germany’s international allies that its foreign policy would be characterised by continuity rather than change. Ironically, however, it was Germany’s international partners who from the 1990s onwards put more and more pressure on Germany to play a larger international role. Considering the challenges in the Middle East as well as the Balkans in the 1990s, it soon emerged that rather than worrying about a united Germany that was punching above its weight, it turned out to be a Germany that punched below its weight that was the major concern of Germany’s allies. As Markovits and Reich put it in 1997, ‘if the essence of the Bonn Republic was the institutional anchoring of democracy on German soil, then the essence of the Berlin Republic will be how Germans resolve the proper deployment of German power in Europe and the world.’7 German political elites have clearly sided with this view. Since the end of the 1990s, German foreign policy has been characterised by a much more participatory approach in interna-

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tional affairs even if this has meant reneging on its customary antimilitarism and returning to the use of military force. Even though its general disposition is still largely multilateralist, the Berlin Republic has also shown that it can mobilise support against one of its key allies, as it did in the case of Iraq. Overall, its foreign policy identity is characterised by much more assertiveness and although its commitment to Europe as well as to transatlantic relations still stands firm, it does not show the ‘reflexive approval’ or sometimes maybe only ‘tacit approval’ that Germany’s allies had grown accustomed to during the Bonn Republic. Whereas international diplomacy does not allow for comments regarding Germany’s assertiveness by the political elites of Germany’s allies, it is certainly noted in the press. For German governments to pursue Germany’s national interest more openly and for Germany to behave like ‘London’ or ‘Paris’ is still something new. Domestically and internationally, united Germany has come out of the shadow of the Holocaust and the Second World War. It has found a more accommodating past that once again allows a positive identification with the German nation. At the same time, the Federal Republic is characterised by internal divisions and more socioeconomic problems than ever before. Germany has emancipated itself and has turned into a major player which does not shy away anymore from asserting its right to a foreign policy based on its national interest. At the same time as having re-established itself as a major international player, however, Germany’s domestic developments have rendered it more vulnerable, as recent challenges to the Modell Deutschland and a lack of inner cohesion have shown. The Berlin Republic’s foreign policy has much more room for manoeuvre but also more scope to get it wrong. The ‘probation period’ of the Bonn Republic came to an end with unification but the ‘probation period’ of the Berlin Republic has only just begun.

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Notes Introduction: A Different Republic After All? 1. See, for example, Mary Fulbrook (1999) German National Identity after the Holocaust (Cambridge: Blackwell). 2. For an analysis of the way decentralised state institutions and centralised societal structures have domestically led to the emergence of a ‘semisovereign state’ in the Federal Republic after 1949, see Peter Katzenstein (1987) Policy and Politics in Germany: The Growth of a Semisovereign State (Philadelphia: Temple University Press). 3. Patricia Hogwood (2005) ‘Redefining “Combative Democracy” after September 11. Implications for Policymaking on Immigration and Foreign Residence in Germany and in Europe’, p. 2. Paper presented at the International Conference Social Justice in a Changing World. Graduate School of Social Sciences, University of Bremen, 10–12 March 2005. I would like to thank the author for providing me with a copy of the paper. 4. Karl Loewenstein (1937) ‘Militant Democracy and Fundamental Rights, II’, The American Political Science Review, 31:4, pp. 638–658, p. 652. 5. The term ‘semi-sovereignty’ has thus been applied to describe the domestic, institutional set-up of the Federal Republic (see footnote 2) as well as its international status after 1949. 6. Hans Peter Schwarz (1985) Die gezähmten Deutschen. Von der Machtversessenheit zur Machtvergessenheit (Stuttgart: Deutsche VerlagsAnstalt). 7. Michael Schwab-Trapp (2003) ‘Der Nationalsozialismus im öffentlichen Diskurs über militärische Gewalt’ in Wolfgang Bergem (ed.) Die NS-Diktatur im deutschen Erinnerungsdiskurs (Opladen: Leske & Budrich), pp. 171–185, p. 173. 8. James A. McAdams (1997) ‘Germany after Unification: Normal at Last?’ World Politics, 49, pp. 282–308, p. 283. 9. McAdams (1997), p. 283. 10. McAdams (1997), p. 284. 11. Gebhard Schweigler (1989) ‘Normalität in Deutschland’, Europa-Archiv, 6, pp. 173–182, p. 174. 12. Jürgen Habermas (1998) A Berlin Republic: Writings on Germany (Cambridge: Polity Press), p. 165. 13. Schweigler (1989), p. 176. 14. Rolf Steininger (2001) ‘The German Question, 1945–1995’ in Klaus Larres (ed.) Germany since Unification (Basingstoke: Palgrave, second edition), pp. 9–32, p. 20.

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15. Deutscher Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 14/33, 19 April 1999. 16. Deutscher Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 14/33, 19 April 1999. 17. Gerhard Schröder, ‘Erklärung der Bundesregierung zum Stand der Deutschen Einheit’, 19 April 1999. 18. Roman Herzog, ‘Ansprache anläßlich der Verleihung der Ehrenbürgerwürde Berlins’, 3 February 1999. 19. Gerhard Schröder, ‘Erklärung zum 50jährigen Bestehen von Grundgesetz und Bundesrepublik’, 23 May 1999. 20. Gerhard Schröder, ‘Erklärung der Bundesregierung zum Stand der Deutschen Einheit’, 19 April 1999. 21. Gerhard Schröder, Regierungserklärung, 10 November 1998. 22. Gerhard Schröder, ‘Erklärung der Bundesregierung zum Stand der Deutschen Einheit’, 19 April 1999. 23. Johannes Gross (1995) Begründung der Berliner Republik. Deutschland am Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts (Munich: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt). 24. Gerhard Schröder (2006) Entscheidungen. Mein Leben in der Politik (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe), p. 77. 25. Schröder (2006), p. 78. 26. Schröder (2006), p. 82. 27. Rainer Baumann and Gunther Hellmann (2001) ‘Germany and the Use of Military Force: “Total War”, the “Culture of Restraint” and the Quest for Normality’, German Politics, 10:1, pp. 61–82, p. 72. 28. McAdams (1997), pp. 282–283. 29. See, for example, Jürgen Habermas (1995) Die Normalität einer Berliner Republik (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp); Peter Pulzer (1994) ‘Unified Germany: A Normal State?’ German Politics, 3:1, pp. 1–17; Werner Reutter (ed.) (2004) Germany on the Road to ‘Normalcy’: Policies and Politics of the Red-Green Federal Government (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). 30. Robert Kagan (2002) ‘Power and Weakness: Why the United States and Europe See the World Differently’, Policy Review, 113, available at http:// www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/3460246.html. 31. Kagan (2002). 32. Andrei S. Markovits and Simon Reich (1997) The German Predicament: Memory and Power in the New Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press), p. 5. 33. Markovits and Reich (1997), p. 5. 34. Markovits and Reich (1997), p. 7. 35. Claire Sutherland (2010) Soldered States: Nation-Building in Germany and Vietnam (Manchester: Manchester University Press), p. 5. 36. Fulbrook (1999), p. 8. 37. Fulbrook (1999), pp. 12–13. 38. Eric Hobsbawm (1992) Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 6. 39. Benedict Anderson (1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso), p. 4. 40. Anderson (1991), p. 3.

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Notes

41. Unfortunately, this also means that some aspects of Germany’s identity such as its increasingly multicultural character, for example, are beyond the scope of this discussion. 42. Gregor Schöllgen (2004), Der Auftritt. Deutschlands Rückkehr auf die Weltbühne (Berlin: Ullstein).

1 German National Identity and the Nazi Past 1. Harald Welzer (1996) ‘Der Mythos der unbewältigten Vergangenheit’, Leviathan, 24:4, pp. 587–603, p. 587. 2. Jeffrey K. Olick (2007) The Politics of Regret (London: Routledge), p. 13. 3. Jan-Werner Müller (2000) Another Country: German Intellectuals, Unification and National Identity (New Haven: Yale University Press), p. 22. 4. Annette Leo quoted in Sabine Moller (2003) Vielfache Vergangenheit. Öffentliche Erinnerungskulturen und Familienerinnerungen an die NS-Zeit in Ostdeutschland (Tübingen: edition diskord), p. 45. 5. Michael Zimmermann quoted in Moller (2003), p. 47. 6. Moller (2003), p. 50. 7. Bernhard Giesen (1998) Intellectuals and the Nation: Collective Identity in a German Axial Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 154. 8. Mark R. Thompson (2000) ‘A Hostile People but a Loyal Opposition: National Identity and Anti-Fascism in the GDR’ in Howard Williams, Colin Wight and Norbert Kapferer (eds) Political Thought and German Reunification: The New German Ideology? (Basingstoke: Macmillan), pp. 1–27, p. 7. 9. Jeffrey Herf (1997) Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), pp. 175–176. 10. Norbert Frei (1997) Vergangenheitspolitik: Die Anfänge der Bundesrepublik und die NS-Vergangenheit (Munich: Beck Verlag), pp. 397–398. 11. Giesen (1998), pp. 145–146. 12. Hermann Lübbe (1983) ‘Der Nationalsozialismus im deutschen Nachkriegsbewußtsein’, Historische Zeitschrift, 236, pp. 579–599. 13. Daniel Levy and Natan Sznaider (2002) ‘Memory Unbound: The Holocaust and the Formation of Cosmopolitan Memory’, European Journal of Social Theory, 5:1, pp. 87–106, p. 94. 14. Karl Jaspers (1946) Die Schuldfrage (Heidelberg: Lambert Schneider Verlag). 15. Robert G. Moeller (2001) War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany (Berkeley: University of California Press), p. 6. 16. Levy and Sznaider (2002), p. 93. 17. Norbert Frei (2005) ‘1945 und wir. Wie aus Tätern Opfer wurden’, Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik, 50:3, pp. 356–364, p. 357. 18. Wulf Kansteiner (2006) ‘Losing the War, Winning the Memory Battle: The Legacy of Nazism, World War II, and the Holocaust in the Federal Republic of Germany’ in Richard Ned Lebow, Wulf Kansteiner and

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19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

25. 26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

32. 33. 34. 35.

36. 37.

38. 39.

Claudio Fogu (eds) The Politics of Memory in Postwar Europe (Durham, NC: Duke University Press), pp. 102–146, p. 108. Saul K. Padover (1946) Psychologist in Germany: The Story of an American Intelligence Officer (London: Phoenix House), p. 12. Padover (1946), pp. 52–53. Hannah Arendt (1993) Besuch in Deutschland (Berlin: Rotbuch Verlag, first published in English by the American Jewish Committee in 1950), p. 25. Arendt (1993), p. 25. Eugen Kogon (1946) Der SS-Staat. Das System der deutschen Konzentrationslager (München: Karl Alber Verlag). Quoted in Gerd Wiegel (2005) ‘Niederlage, Befreiung oder Sieg. Der 8. Mai im Spiegel seiner Jubiläen’, Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik, 50:5, pp. 564–570, p. 567. Jürgen Habermas (1998) A Berlin Republic: Writings on Germany (Cambridge: Polity Press), p. 161. Richard von Weizsäcker ‘Zum 40. Jahrestag der Beendigung des Krieges in Europa und der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft’, Speech to the Bundestag, 8 May 1985. Helmut Kohl (2005) Erinnerungen, 1982–1990 (Munich: Droemer Verlag), p. 348. Kohl (2005), p. 355. Michael Stürmer, ‘Geschichte im geschichtslosen Land’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 26 November 1986. Habermas (1998), p. 164. Quoted in Jochen Fischer and Hans Karl Rupp (2005) ‘Deutsche Vereinigung und NS-Vergangenheit’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte. Beilage zur Wochenzeitung Das Parlament, 40, pp. 41–46, p. 41. Müller (2000), p. 85. Ian Kershaw (1992) Germany’s Present, Germany’s Past (London: Institute of Germanic Studies, University of London). Daniel J. Goldhagen (1996) Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (New York: Knopf). See, for example, Bill Niven (2002) Facing the Nazi Past: United Germany and the Legacy of the Third Reich (London: Routledge) and Helmut Schmitz (ed.) (2001) German Culture and the Uncomfortable Past: Representations of National Socialism in Contemporary Germanic Literature (Aldershot: Ashgate). Roger Boyes and William Horsley (1995) ‘The Germans as Victims: A British View’, The World Today, June, pp. 110–114, p. 114. Karl Wilds (2000) ‘Identity Creation and the Culture of Contrition: Recasting “Normality” in the Berlin Republic’, German Politics, 9:1, pp. 83–102. Eric Langenbacher (2003) ‘Changing Memory Regimes in Contemporary Germany’, German Politics and Society, 21:2, pp. 46–68. Martin Walser, ‘Erfahrungen beim Verfassen einer Sonntagsrede’ Dankesrede von Martin Walser zur Verleihung des Friedenspreises des Deutschen Buchhandels in der Frankfurter Paulskirche, 11 October 1998.

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150 Notes

40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

59. 60.

Kansteiner (2006), p. 133. Roman Herzog, ‘Die Zukunft der Erinnerung’, Speech, 27 January 1999. Habermas (1998), pp. 22–23. Jan Assmann (1995) ‘Collective Memory and Cultural Identity’, New German Critique, 65, pp. 125–133. Roman Herzog, ‘Zum Gedenktag für die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus’, Speech to the Bundestag, 19 January 1996. Friederike Eigler (2005) ‘Writing the New Germany: Cultural Memory and Family Narratives’, German Politics and Society, 23:3, pp. 16–41, p. 19. Levy and Sznaider (2002), p. 93. http://www.bnaibrith.ca/league/hh-teachers/educan02.html Levy and Sznaider (2002), p. 88. Levy and Sznaider (2002), p. 97. For a discussion of the main public debates and controversies between 1998 and 2006, see also Caroline Pearce (2008) Contemporary Germany and the Nazi Legacy: Remembrance, Politics and the Dialectics of Normality (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Quoted in Werner A. Perger ‘Wir Unbefangenen’, Die Zeit, 47, 12 November 1998. Gerhard Schröder, Regierungserklärung, 10 November 1998. Gerhard Schröder, Interview, Die Zeit, 4 February 1999. Gerhard Schröder (2006) Entscheidungen. Mein Leben in der Politik (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe), p. 79. Walser (1998). Kansteiner (2006), p. 128. Quoted in Interview with Gerhard Schröder, Die Zeit, 4 February 1999. Anja Hense (2006) ‘Politik des Schlussstrichs. Eine Bilanz der Stiftung “Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft” ’, Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik, 1, pp. 100–110, p. 108. Bill Niven (ed.) (2006) Germans as Victims (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Literary examples include W.G. Sebald (2001), Luftkrieg und Literatur (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer Taschenbuchverlag) and Dieter Forte (2002), Schweigen oder Sprechen (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer Taschenbuchverlag, popular historical accounts include Jörg Friedrich (2002, 2003) Der Brand: Deutschland im Bombenkrieg 1940–1945 (München: Ullstein Verlag) and Brandstätten: Der Anblick des Bombenkriegs (Berlin: Propyläen Verlag); Klaus Rainer Röhl (2002), Verbotene Trauer: Ende der deutschen Tabus (Tübingen: Rowohlt); Volker Hage (2003), Hamburg 1943 (Frankfurt/ Main: Rowohlt); Franz Kurowski (2003), Dresden Februar 1945 (Wien: Tosa Verlag). Its presence in the wider public debate became obvious, for example, in 2003 when Der Spiegel ran a series on the bombing war (So muss die Hölle aussehen) which was followed up by a special issue. The topic was furthermore followed up by a book published by the SpiegelBuchverlag entitled Als Feuer vom Himmel fiel. Der Bombenkrieg in Deutschland (ed. by Stephan Burgdorff and Christian Habbe (2003), Munich: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt) which is now even distributed by the Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung.

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61. Friedrich (2002). 62. Gerhard Schröder, ‘Wir stehen erst jetzt am Ende einer langen Nachkriegszeit’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 7 May 2005. 63. Joschka Fischer, Interview, Die Zeit, 28 August 2003. 64. Schröder, ‘Wir stehen erst jetzt am Ende einer langen Nachkriegszeit’ (2005). 65. Von Weizsäcker (1985). 66. Gerhard Schröder, ‘Rede bei den Feierlichkeiten zum 60. Jahrestag der Beendigung des Zweiten Weltkrieges’, Moscow, 8 May 2005. 67. Regarding the relationship between official and private memory, see Harald Welzer, Sabine Moller and Karoline Tschugnall (2003) ‘Opa war kein Nazi’ (Frankfurt: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag). 68. Gerhard Schröder, ‘Rede bei den französisch-deutschen Feierlichkeiten des “D-Day” ’, Caen, 6 June 2004. 69. Horst Köhler, ‘Rede bei der Gedenkveranstaltung im Plenarsaal des Deutschen Bundestages zum 60. Jahrestag des Endes des Zweiten Weltkrieges in Europa’, 8 May 2005. 70. Gerhard Schröder, Beitrag zum 60. Jahrestag des Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs, Mittelbayerische Zeitung, 6 May 2005. 71. Roman Herzog, ‘Ansprache beim Staatsakt aus Anlaß des 50. Jahrestages des Endes des Zweiten Weltkrieges’, 8 May 1995. 72. Horst Köhler, ‘Ansprache in der Gemeinsamen Sitzung von Bundestag und Bundesrat nach der Eidesleistung gemäß Art. 56 Grundgesetz’, 1 July 2004. 73. Gerhard Schröder, ‘Rede bei den französisch-deutschen Feierlichkeiten des “D-Day” ’, Caen, 6 June 2004. 74. Horst Köhler, ‘Rede bei der Gedenkveranstaltung im Plenarsaal des Deutschen Bundestages zum 60. Jahrestag des Endes des Zweiten Weltkrieges in Europa’, 8 May 2005. 75. Angela Merkel, ‘Rede an der Universität Warschau’, 16 March 2007. 76. Angela Merkel, ‘Rede vor der Knesset in Jerusalem’, 18 March 2008. 77. Angela Merkel and Prime Minister Olmert, Press Statement, 17 March 2008. 78. Donald Tusk, Interview, FAZ.NET, 10 December 2007. 79. Angela Merkel, ‘60 Jahre Vertreibung – 60 Jahre Versöhnung’, Speech, 18 September 2006. 80. Angela Merkel, ‘Rede an der Universität Warschau’, 16 March 2007. 81. Angela Merkel, ‘Rede beim Festakt zum 50-jährigen Bestehen des Bundes der Vertriebenen’, 22 October 2007. 82. Annual event of expellee organisations commemorating the expulsions. 83. ‘NS-Gedenkstätten sollen zum Vertriebenentag flaggen’, Spiegel Online, 29 August 2006. 84. Wilds (2000). 85. Kansteiner (2006), p. 130. 86. Niven (2006), p. 10. 87. Reinhard Mohr quoted in Bill Niven (2006), p. 10.

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152 Notes

88. Wiegel (2005), p. 569. 89. Welzer, Moller and Tschugnall (2003). 90. Rüdiger Suchsland (2005) ‘Eine Vergangenheit zum Wohlfühlen: Zum 60sten Jahrestag des Endes des Zweiten Weltkriegs’, 8 May, available at http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/20/20053/1.html. 91. Horst-Alfred Heinrich (2003) ‘Die kollektiven Erinnerungen an die Shoa als Störfaktor nationaler Identität’ in Wolfgang Bergem (ed.) Die NS-Diktatur im deutschen Erinnerungsdiskurs (Opladen: Leske + Budrich), pp. 59–79, p. 59. 92. Albrecht Von Lucke (2006) ‘Der Wille zum Wir’, Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik, 51:7, pp. 777–781, p. 777. 93. Lucke (2006), p. 777.

2

The Quest for ‘Inner Unity’

1. See also Peter Reichel (2005) Schwarz-Rot-Gold (Munich: C.H. Beck), p. 62. 2. Heinrich August Winkler (2001) Der lange Weg nach Westen II. Deutsche Geschichte 1933–1990 (Munich: C.H. Beck), p. 295. 3. Winkler (2001), p. 428. 4. Quoted in Jan-Werner Müller (2000), Another Country: German Intellectuals, Unification and National Identity (New Haven: Yale University Press), p. 66. 5. Quoted in Winkler (2001), p. 438. 6. Quoted in Winkler (2001), p. 438. 7. Jürgen Habermas (1987) Eine Art Schadensabwicklung (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp), p. 135. For an English translation (by Jeremy Leaman) of the essay ‘Apologetic Tendencies’, see New German Critique, 44 (1988), pp. 25–39. 8. Müller (2000), p. 109. 9. Quoted in Müller (2000), p. 67. 10. Manuela Glaab (1999) ‘Einstellungen zur deutschen Einheit’ in Werner Weidenfeld and Karl-Rudolf Korte (eds) Handbuch zur deutschen Einheit 1949–1989–1999 (Frankfurt/Main: Campus), pp. 306–316, pp. 307–308. 11. Anne Köhler (1995) ‘Nationalbewußtsein und Identitätsgefühl der Bürger der DDR unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der deutschen Frage’ in Deutscher Bundestag (ed.) Materialien der Enquete-Kommission ‘Aufarbeitung von Geschichte und Folgen der SED-Diktatur in Deutschland’ (Frankfurt/ Main: Suhrkamp), pp. 1636–1675, p. 1653. 12. Glaab (1999), p. 309. 13. Köhler (1995), pp. 1643–1644. 14. Glaab (1999), p. 311. 15. Glaab (1999), p. 313. 16. Glaab (1999), p. 312. 17. For a discussion of the collective identity dilemma in the 1980s, see Joyce Marie Mushaben (1998) From Post-War to Post-Wall Generations: Changing Attitudes towards the National Question and NATO in the Federal Republic of Germany (Boulder: Westview Press).

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18. Mary Fulbrook (1992) The Two Germanies 1945–1990 (Basingstoke: Macmillan), p. 73. 19. Helmut Kohl, ‘Bericht zur Lage der Nation im geteilten Deutschland’, 1 December 1988. 20. For details regarding the discussion, see Winkler (2001), p. 473. 21. Since the FRG did not recognise the GDR as a foreign state it was not called an embassy. 22. For more details on the way emigration took on a huge momentum see Edgar Wolfrum (2006) Die geglückte Demokratie (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta), p. 436. 23. Albert O. Hirschman (1993) ‘Exit, Voice, and the Fate of the German Democratic Republic’, World Politics, 45:2, pp. 173–202, p. 197. 24. See also Christian Joppke (1993) ‘Why Leipzig? “Exit” and “Voice” in the East German Revolution’, German Politics, 2:3, pp. 393–414. 25. This was not the case for the Social Democrats since they merged with the communist party in the early years of the GDR. 26. Helmut Kohl (2005) Erinnerungen, 1982–1990 (Munich: Droemer Verlag), pp. 958–959. 27. Kohl (2005), p. 965. 28. Reichel (2005), p. 44. 29. Podcast available at http://podcast.com/episode/19123011/5415/. 30. Kohl (2005), p. 971. 31. Kohl (2005), p. 979. 32. Kohl (2005), p. 989. 33. Kohl (2005), p. 999. 34. Kohl (2005), p. 1020. 35. Kohl (2005), p. 1023. 36. Kohl (2005), p. 1027. 37. Jürgen Habermas (1991) ‘Yet Again: German Identity: A Unified Nation of Angry DM-Burghers?’ New German Critique, 52, pp. 84–101, p. 85. 38. Frank Brunssen (2005) Das neue Selbstverständnis der Berliner Republik (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann), p. 63. 39. Karl-Heinz Bohrer (1991) ‘Why We Are Not a Nation, and Why We Should Become One’, New German Critique, 52, pp. 72–83, p. 72. 40. Monika Maron (1991) ‘Writers and the People’, New German Critique, 52, pp. 36–41, p. 37. 41. Quoted in Maron (1991), p. 37. 42. Habermas (1991), p. 84. 43. Quoted in Müller (2000), p. 85. 44. Gerhard Schröder (2006) Entscheidungen. Mein Leben in der Politik (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe), p. 52. 45. Der Spiegel, 40 (2001), p. 138. 46. Major criticism was also made of the fact that the Property Act of September 1990 which was part of the Unification Treaty applied the principle ‘restitution before compensation’ which caused a lot of animosity and alienation. Christoph Dieckmann described this as the ‘mortal sin’ of unification and Roland Czada suggested that no other

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47. 48. 49. 50.

51.

52.

53.

54. 55.

56.

57. 58.

59. 60. 61. 62.

Notes

topic divided east and west Germans more than open property questions (both quoted in Helga Welsh (2006) ‘When Discourse Trumps Policy: Transitional Justice in Unified Germany’, German Politics, 15:2, pp. 137–152, p. 143, see also Daniela Dahn (1994) Wir bleiben hier oder Wem gehört der Osten (Reinbek: Rowohlt). Schröder (2006), pp. 52–53. Benedict Anderson (1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso). Petra Bauer-Kaase and Max Kaase (1996) ‘Five Years of Unification: The Germans on the Path to Inner Unity’, German Politics, 5:1, pp. 1–25, p. 21. Jonathan Grix (2000) ‘East German Political Attitudes: Socialist Legacies v. Situational Factors – A False Antithesis’, German Politics, 9:2, pp. 109–124, p. 122. Kai Arzheimer (2006) ‘Von “Westalgie” und “Zonenkindern”: Die Rolle der jungen Generation im Prozess der Vereinigung’ in Jürgen W. Falter, Oscar W. Gabriel, Hans Rattinger and Harald Schoen (eds) Sind wir ein Volk? Ost- und Westdeutschland im Vergleich (Munich: Beck Verlag), pp. 212–234, p. 232. Quoted in Kerstin Völkl (2006) ‘Überwiegt die Verdrossenheit oder die Unterstützung? Die Einstellungen der West- und Ostdeutschen zur Demokratie, zu politischen Institutionen und Politikern’ in Jürgen W. Falter, Oscar W. Gabriel, Hans Rattinger and Harald Schoen (eds) Sind wir ein Volk? Ost- und Westdeutschland im Vergleich (Munich: Beck Verlag), pp. 57–81, pp. 80–81. Hans-Joachim Veen (1997) ‘ “Inner Unity” – Back to the Community Myth? A Plea for a Basic Consensus’, German Politics, 6:3, pp. 1–15, p. 10. Veen (1997), p. 12. Statistisches Bundesamt (2008) Datenreport 2008. Ein Sozialbericht für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung), pp. 404–405. Köhler (1995), pp. 1644–1645. See also Katja Neller (2006) ‘Getrennt vereint? Ost-West-Identitäten, Stereotypen und Fremdheitsgefühle nach 15 Jahren deutscher Einheit’ in Jürgen W. Falter, Oscar W. Gabriel, Hans Rattinger and Harald Schoen (eds) Sind wir ein Volk? Ost- und Westdeutschland im Vergleich (Munich: Beck Verlag), pp. 13–36, p. 34. Agnès Arp and Anette Leo (eds) (2009) Mein Land verschwand so schnell ... (Weimar: Weimarer Verlagsgesellschaft). See also Paul Cooke (2005) Representing East Germany: From Colonization to Nostalgia (Oxford: Berg) and Jonathan Grix and Paul Cooke (eds) (2002) East German Distinctiveness in a Unified Germany (Birmingham: Birmingham University Press). Arzheimer (2006), p. 225. TNS Forschung, Der Spiegel, 6 November 2007. TNS Forschung, Der Spiegel, 6 November 2007. A number of 1980s shows have been broadcast on television. For examples of novels, see Florian Illies: Generation Golf; Richard D. Precht: Lenin kam

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76.

nur bis Lüdenscheid; Sven Regener: Herr Lehmann and for examples of films, see Liegen lernen and Verschwende deine Jugend. Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Bau und Stadtentwicklung (2009) ‘Jahresbericht zum Stand der Deutschen Einheit’ (Berlin: Bundesregierung), p. 11. Statistisches Bundesamt (2008), p. 167. Jennifer Yoder (1999) ‘Truth without Reconciliation: An Appraisal of the Enquete Commission on the SED Dictatorship in Germany’, German Politics, 8:3, pp. 59–80, p. 59. Welsh (2006), p. 148. Its official title is Der/Die Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik. Yoder (1999), p. 66. For criticism, see Norbert Frei ‘Der Erinnerungstisch ist reich gedeckt’, Die Zeit, 26 March 2009. The German term Unrechtsstaat is ambiguous since it can be read to mean a state not bound by the rule of law (kein Rechtsstaat, that is, ein Unrechtsstaat) but it can also be seen to mean an ‘unjust state/regime’. For contributions to this debate, see ‘DDR-Äußerungen bringen Ministerpräsident in Bedrängnis’, Spiegel Online, 22 March 2009; ‘Platzeck kritisiert DDR-Debatte’, Spiegel Online, 17 May 2009; Interview with Heinrich August Winkler, ‘Die DDR war vom Anfang bis zum Ende eine Diktatur’, Spiegel Online, 20 May 2009; Gesine Schwan, ‘In der Falle des Totalitarismus’, Die Zeit, 27, 25 June 2009; Marianne Birthler, ‘Liebe Ossiversteher!’, Die Zeit, 28, 2 July 2009. Quoted in Müller (2000), p. 101. Maurice Halbwachs (1992) On Collective Memory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, edited, translated, and with an introduction by Lewis A. Coser). Bauer-Kaase and Kaase (1996), p. 22. TNS Forschung, Der Spiegel, 6 November 2007. See, for example, Joyce Marie Mushaben (2001) ‘Ost-West-Identitäten: Generationen zwischen Wende und Wandel’, Berliner Debatte Initial, 12, pp. 74–87. Arzheimer (2006), p. 227.

3

From Prosperity to a Democracy of Want?

63.

64. 65.

66. 67.

68. 69. 70.

71. 72.

73. 74. 75.

1. Theodor W. Adorno (1986) ‘What Does Coming to Terms with the Past Mean?’ translated by Timothy Bahti and Geoffrey Hartman in Geoffrey Hartman (ed.) Bitburg in Moral and Political Perspective (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), German original first published in 1959, pp. 114–129, p. 118. 2. Greiffenhagen quoted in Eva Kolinsky (1991) ‘Socio-Economic Change and Political Culture in West Germany’ in John Gaffney and Eva Kolinsky

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156 Notes

3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18.

19.

20.

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

(eds) Political Culture in France and Germany (London: Routledge), pp. 34–68, p. 41. Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba (1963) The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press), p. 429 and p. 102. Edinger quoted in Kolinsky (1991), p. 36. Kolinsky (1991), p. 36. Konrad H. Jarausch (2006) After Hitler: Recivilizing Germans, 1945–1995 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 89. Jarausch (2006), p. 88. Mary Fulbrook (1987) ‘Solutions to German History? East and West Germany Compared’, Parliamentary Affairs, 40:1, pp. 113–129, pp. 123–124. See Fulbrook (1987), pp. 123–124 and Kolinsky (1991), p. 45 and David P. Conradt (1989) ‘Changing German Political Culture’ in Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba (eds) The Civic Culture Revisited (London: Sage), pp. 212–272. David P. Conradt (2001) The German Polity (London: Longman), p. 87. Almond and Verba (1963), p. 496. Conradt (2001), pp. 75–76. Habermas quoted in Conradt (2001), p. 77. Jarausch (2006), p. 87. Kolinsky (1991), p. 36. Conradt (1989), p. 223. For a detailed discussion, see Stephen Padgett and Thomas Poguntke (eds) (2001) Continuity and Change in German Politics: Beyond the Politics of Centrality? A Festschrift for Gordon Smith, Special Issue of German Politics, 10:2. Richard Overy (1996) ‘The Economy of the Federal Republic since 1949’ in Klaus Larres and Panikos Panayi (eds) The Federal Republic of Germany since 1949: Politics, Society and Economy before and after Unification (London: Longman), pp. 3–34, pp. 3–4. Helmut Wiesenthal (2003) ‘German Unification and “Model Germany”: An Adventure in Institutional Conservatism’, West European Politics, 26:4, pp. 37–58, p. 37. Carsten Hefeker and Norbert Wunner (2003) ‘Promises Made, Promises Broken: A Political Economic Perspective on German Unification’, German Politics, 12:1, pp. 109–134, p. 111. Christopher S. Allen (2006) ‘The Road to 2005: The Policy of Modernisation’, German Politics, 15:4, pp. 347–360, p. 350. Allen (2006), p. 352. Roman Herzog, ‘Aufbruch ins 21. Jahrhundert’, Berlin Address, 26 April 1997. Christian Schweiger (2007) Britain, Germany and the Future of the European Union (Basingstoke: Macmillan), p. 127. Gerhard Schröder, Regierungserklärung, 29 October 2002. See, for example, Gerhard Schröder, Regierungserklärung, 14 March 2003.

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Notes 157

27. Horst Köhler, ‘Ansprache in der Gemeinsamen Sitzung von Bundestag und Bundesrat nach der Eidesleistung gemäß Art. 56 Grundgesetz’, 1 July 2004. 28. Angela Merkel, Regierungserklärung, 30 November 2005. 29. Horst Köhler, ‘Arbeit, Bildung, Integration’, Berlin Address, 1 June 2008. 30. See Dan Hough and Michael Koß (2009) ‘Populism Personified or Reinvigorated Reformers?’ German Politics and Society, 27:2, pp. 76–91. 31. Gerhard Schröder (2006) Entscheidungen. Mein Leben in der Politik (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe), p. 374. 32. Gerhard Schröder, ‘Rede zum Antrag gemäß Artikel 68 des Grundgesetzes’, 1 July 2005. 33. Allen (2006), p. 359. 34. Allen (2006), p. 357. For a discussion of some of the social policy changes under the Schröder governments between 1998 and 2005, see also Hartwig Pautz (2009) ‘Germany’s Social Democrats in Search of a New Party Programme’, Politics, 29:2, pp. 121–129. 35. Achim Kemmerling and Oliver Bruttel (2006) ‘ “New Politics” in German Labour Market Policy? The Implications of the Recent Hartz Reforms for the German Welfare State’, West European Politics, 29:1, pp. 90–112, p. 90. 36. Kemmerling and Bruttel (2006), p. 109. 37. Ulrich Beck, Interview, ZDF, 17 January 2005. 38. Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales, Sozialbericht 2009 (Berlin: Bundesregierung), available at http://www.bmas.de/coremedia/ generator/33916/property=pdf/a101–09__sozialbericht__2009.pdf. 39. Beck (2005). 40. The figures are based on a definition of poverty of households whose income is less than 60 per cent of the national average income, that is, 764 euros a month for singles and 1376 euros per month for a childless couple. 41. Deutscher Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband (2009) ‘Unter unseren Verhältnissen ... Der erste Armutsatlas für Regionen in Deutschland’ (Berlin: Paritätische Forschungsstelle), available at http://www.derparitaetische.de/uploads/tx_pdforder/Armutsatlas_korrigiert_web.pdf. 42. Russell J. Dalton (1994) ‘Communists and Democrats: Democratic Attitudes in the Two Germanies’, British Journal of Political Science, 24:4, pp. 469–493, p. 489. 43. Dalton (1994), p. 490. 44. Dalton (1994), p. 491. 45. Dalton (1994), p. 486. 46. See Dieter Fuchs and Edeltraud Roller (2004) ‘Die Einstellung zur Demokratie in Deutschland’ in Gotthard Breit (ed.) Politische Kultur in Deutschland (Schwalbach: Wochenschauverlag), pp. 30–37. 47. Statistisches Bundesamt (2008) Datenreport 2008. Ein Sozialbericht für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung), pp. 397–398. 48. Statistisches Bundesamt (2008), pp. 397–398.

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158 Notes

49. 50. 51. 52.

53. 54. 55. 56. 57.

58. 59.

60. 61. 62.

63. 64. 65.

Statistisches Bundesamt (2008), pp. 388 and 395. Statistisches Bundesamt (2008), p. 391. Statistisches Bundesamt (2008), p. 392. Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Bau und Stadtentwicklung (2009) ‘Jahresbericht zum Stand der Deutschen Einheit’ (Berlin: Bundesregierung), pp. 3 and p. 31. Bundesministerium des Innern (2009) Verfassungsschutzbericht 2008. Vorabfassung (Berlin: Bundesregierung), p. 147. Bundesministerium des Innern (2009), p. 50. Bundesministerium des Innern (2009), p. 27. Bundesministerium des Innern (2009), p. 50. Oliver Decker and Elmar Brähler (2005) ‘Rechtsextreme Einstellungen in Deutschland’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte. Beilage zur Wochenzeitung Das Parlament, 42, 17 October, pp. 8–17, pp. 15–16. Decker and Brähler (2005), p. 16. Eva Wenzel (2006) ‘ “Sozial ist, was Arbeit schafft”? Einstellungen zur Wirtschaftslage und Sozialen Gerechtigkeit in Deutschland’ in Jürgen W. Falter, Oscar W. Gabriel, Hans Rattinger and Harald Schoen (eds) Sind wir ein Volk? Ost- und Westdeutschland im Vergleich (Munich: Beck), pp. 37–56, p. 47. Wiesenthal (2003), p. 37. Beck (2005). Kerstin Völkl (2006) ‘Überwiegt die Verdrossenheit oder die Unterstützung? Die Einstellungen der West- und Ostdeutschen zur Demokratie, zu politischen Institutionen und Politikern’ in Jürgen W. Falter, Oscar W. Gabriel, Hans Rattinger and Harald Schoen (eds) Sind wir ein Volk? Ost- und Westdeutschland im Vergleich (Munich: Beck), pp. 57–81, p. 77. Horst Köhler, ‘Die Glaubwürdigkeit der Freiheit’, Berlin Address, 24 March 2009. Beck (2005). Peter Pulzer (1995) German Politics, 1945–1995 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 183.

4 The New Germany in the New Europe: A Leading Power 1. Nigel Thomas (1998) ‘Germany and Europe’ in Peter James (ed.) Modern Germany: Politics, Society and Culture (London: Routledge), pp. 196–212, p. 200. 2. Manuela Glaab (1999) ‘Einstellungen zur deutschen Einheit’ in Werner Weidenfeld and Karl-Rudolf Korte (eds) Handbuch zur deutschen Einheit 1949–1989–1999 (Frankfurt/Main: Campus), pp. 306–316, p. 310. 3. William E. Paterson (2003) ‘Germany and Europe’ in Stephen Padgett, William E. Paterson and Gordon Smith (eds) Developments in German Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 206–226, p. 207. 4. William E. Paterson (2003), p. 211.

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Notes 159

5. Miriam Karama quoted in Gisela Müller-Brandeck-Bocquet (2003) ‘Die Europapolitik des vereinten Deutschland’ in Wichard Woyke (ed.) Neue deutsche Außenpolitik (Schwalbach: Wochenschau Verlag), pp. 47–73, p. 47. 6. Frank Brunssen (2005) Das neue Selbstverständnis der Berliner Republik (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann), p. 27. 7. William E. Paterson (2006) ‘Does Germany Still Have a European Vocation?’ European Research Working Paper Series, Institute for German Studies/European Research Institute, 15, p. 13. 8. Christian Schweiger (2007) Britain, Germany and the European Union (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), p. 62. 9. Geir Lundestad (1998) ‘Empire’ by Integration (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 1. 10. President Truman, News Conference, 18 May 1950, transcript available at http://trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/viewpapers.php?pid=761. 11. Gregor Schöllgen (2004) Der Auftritt. Deutschlands Rückkehr auf die Weltbühne (Berlin: Ullstein Verlag), p. 35. 12. Wilfried Loth (1984) ‘Die doppelte Eindämmung. Überlegungen zur Genesis des Kalten Krieges 1945–1947’, Historische Zeitschrift, 238, pp. 611–631. 13. For an outline of the different positions of what Lundestad calls the ‘traditionalists’ who consider US influence the driving force behind European integration and the ‘revisionists’ who consider internal forces to be the prime movers towards European integration, see Lundestad (1998). 14. Elizabeth Pond (1999) The Rebirth of Europe (Washington: Brookings Institution Press). 15. Geir Lundestad (2003) The United States and Western Europe since 1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 10. 16. In Article 7 of the Germany Treaty (Deutschlandvertrag) of 1952/4 France, Britain and the United States committed themselves to realising their common goal by peaceful means: a united Germany which is based on a liberal democratic constitution similar to that of the Federal Republic and which is integrated into the European community. 17. Margaret Thatcher (1995) The Downing Street Years (London: HarperCollins), p. 798. 18. Thatcher (1995), p. 797. 19. See also Ruth Wittlinger (2001) ‘Representations of Germany in the Context of European Integration in Margaret Thatcher’s Biographies’ in Andreas Musolff, Colin Good, Petra Points and Ruth Wittlinger (eds) Attitudes towards Europe (Aldershot: Ashgate), pp. 23–43. 20. Helmut Kohl (2005) Erinnerungen, 1982–1990 (Munich: Droemer Verlag), p. 1035. 21. Kohl (2005), p. 1036. 22. For a discussion of the way Helmut Kohl instrumentalised historical memory in the context of European integration, see Thomas Banchoff

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23.

24.

25.

26. 27. 28. 29.

30. 31. 32.

33. 34.

35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

40.

41. 42.

Notes

(1997) ‘German Policy towards the European Union: The Effects of Historical Memory’, German Politics, 6:1, pp. 60–76. Joschka Fischer (2000) ‘From Confederacy to Federation: Thoughts on the Finality of European Integration’, Speech at the Humboldt University, Berlin, 12 May 2000. Ruth Wittlinger (2009) ‘The Quest for a European Identity: A Europe without Europeans?’ in Klaus Larres (ed.) A Companion to Europe since 1945 (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell), pp. 369–386. Wolfgang Schäuble und Karl Lamers, ‘Überlegungen zur europäischen Politik’, 1 September 1994, available at http://www.cducsu.de/upload/ schaeublelamers94.pdf. Schweiger (2007), p. 62. Müller-Brandeck-Bocquet (2003), p. 54. Werner Link (1999) ‘Alternativen deutscher Aussenpolitik’, Zeitschrift für Politik, 46:2, pp. 125–143, p. 128. Charlie Jeffery and William E. Paterson (2003) ‘Germany and European Integration: The Shifting of Tectonic Plates’, West European Politics, 26:4, pp. 59–75, p. 68. Timothy Garton Ash (1994) ‘Germany’s Choice’, Foreign Affairs, 73:4, pp. 65–81, p. 74. Banchoff (1997), pp. 60–76. William E. Paterson and Charlie Jeffery (1999) ‘Deutschland, Frankreich – und Großbritannien?’ Internationale Politik, 11, pp. 19–27, pp. 20–21. Gerhard Schröder, Interview, Der Spiegel, 1, 4 January 1999, p. 44. Gerhard Schröder, ‘Vorschau auf den Europäischen Rat in Wien und Ausblick auf die deutsche Präsidentschaft’, Speech to the Bundestag, 10 December 1998. Quoted in Regina Karp (2006) ‘The New German Foreign Policy Consensus’, The Washington Quarterly, 29:1, pp. 61–82, p. 76. Gerhard Schröder, ‘Rede auf dem Außerordentlichen Parteitag der SPD’, Leipzig, 17 April 1998. Gerhard Schröder, Regierungserklärung, 10 November 1998. Jeffery and Paterson (2003), p. 70. Wilhelm Knelangen (2005) ‘Die neue deutsche Europapolitik für eine andere EU?’ Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte. Beilage zur Wochenzeitung Das Parlament, 38–39, pp. 24–30, p. 26. Flash Eurobarometer (2006), Report 193, ‘The Euro, 5 Years after the Introduction of the Banknotes and Coins.’ http://ec.europa.eu/public_ opinion/archives/flash_arch_en.htm. Knelangen (2005), p. 27. Sebastian Harnisch and Siegfried Schieder (2006) ‘Germany’s New European Policy: Weaker, Leaner, Meaner’ in Hanns W. Maull (ed.) Germany’s Uncertain Power: Foreign Policy of the Berlin Republic (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 95–108.

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Notes 161

43. See also Dorothee Heisenberg (2006) ‘Merkel’s EU Policy: “Kohl’s Mädchen” or Interest-Driven Politics?’ German Politics and Society, 24:1, pp. 108–118, p. 111. 44. It has also been suggested in this context that Schröder and Fischer differed markedly in their approaches to Europe. Whereas Joschka Fischer contributed considerably to discussions about the future of Europe, Schröder represented the new pragmatism which increasingly brought a cost/benefit analysis to its policy on Europe. See also Schweiger (2007), chap. 3. 45. Paterson (2003), p. 217. 46. Fischer, Joschka, ‘Rede vor dem Europäischen Parlament in Straßburg’, 12 January 1999. 47. See Gisela Müller-Brandeck-Bocquet (2002) ‘Deutsche Leadership in der Europäischen Union? Die Europapolitik der rot-grünen Bundesregierung 1998–2002’ in Gisela Müller-Brandeck-Bocquet et al., Deutsche Europapolitik von Konrad Adenauer bis Gerhard Schröder (Opladen: Leske + Budrich), p. 187. 48. Peter Norman (2004) ‘Germany and the UK from Convention to the IGC’, German Politics, 13:4, pp. 569–580, p. 570. 49. Fischer (2000). 50. Chirac did eventually agree to 29 votes, that is, the same number as France, Britain and Italy have. 51. Quoted in Schöllgen (2004), p. 241. 52. Europäische Rundschau, 2, 2007. 53. Angela Merkel, Interview, Bild-Zeitung, 23 March 2007. 54. Sven Bernhard Gareis (2006) Deutschlands Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik (Opladen: Verlag Barbara Budrich), p. 98. 55. Christian Hacke (2007) ‘Chancen und Risiken der deutschen Außenpolitik’, Die Politische Meinung, 453, pp. 20–25, p. 24. 56. Angela Merkel, Interview, Bild-Zeitung, 23 March 2007. 57. Angela Merkel, ‘Rede im Rahmen einer Vortragsveranstaltung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik’, 8 November 2006. 58. Angela Merkel, ‘Rede vor dem Europäischen Parlament in Straßburg’, 17 January 2007. 59. Angela Merkel, ‘Ansprache zur Eröffnung des Festaktes zum 50. Jahrestag der Unterzeichnung der Römischen Verträge’, 25 March 2007. 60. Angela Merkel, ‘Rede vor dem Europäischen Parlament in Straßburg’, 17 January 2007. 61. Sebastian Kurpas and Henning Riecke (2007) ‘Is Europe Back on Track? Impetus from the German EU Presidency’, Centre for European Policy Studies Working Document, 273, p. 32. 62. Kurpas and Riecke (2007), p. 31. 63. The Guardian, 12 December 2008. 64. Timothy Garton Ash, ‘One Great Power Will Be Absent from the London G20 Summit’, The Guardian, 26 March 2009.

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65. Joschka Fischer, ‘Deutschland versagt als Führungsmacht’, Spiegel Online, 19 December 2008. 66. Dieter Mahncke (2009) ‘The United States, Germany and France: Balancing Transatlantic Relations’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 11:1, pp. 79–93, p. 85. 67. International Herald Tribune, 10 December 2008. 68. Standard Eurobarometer 67, Nationaler Bericht Deutschland, Spring 2007. 69. BVerfG, 2 BvE 2/08 vom 30.6.2009, Absatz-Nr. (1 - 421), available at h t t p : // w w w. b u n d e s v e r f a s s u n g s g e r i c h t . d e /e n t s c h e i d u n g e n / es20090630_2bve000208.html. 70. The complainants included Peter Gauweiler from the CSU, the son of would-be Hitler assassin von Stauffenberg, Joachim Starbatty, an economics professor from the University of Tübingen, the chairman of the conservative-ecological party ÖDP (Ökologisch-Demokratische Partei) Klaus Buchner and the parliamentary party of the Left Party (Die Linke), represented by their chairmen Gregor Gysi and Oskar Lafontaine. 71. Joschka Fischer, ‘Ein nationaler Riegel’, Die Zeit Online, 9 July 2009, available at http://www.zeit.de/2009/29/Lissabon?page=all. 72. Fischer (2009). 73. ‘The World from Berlin: Brussels Is No Longer Just a Side Dish’, Spiegel Online, 1 July 2009, available at http://www.spiegel.de/international/ germany/0,1518,633736,00.html. 74. Jo Eric Khushal Murkens (2009) ‘Identity Trumps Integration: The Lisbon Treaty in the German Federal Constitutional Court’, Der Staat, 48:4, pp. 517–534, p. 534. 75. Gerhard Schröder, ‘Rede auf der Konferenz für Europäische Kulturpolitik’, 26 November 2004. 76. Eurobarometer 70, Nationaler Bericht Deutschland, Executive Report, Autumn 2008. 77. Joschka Fischer, ‘Deutschland versagt als Führungsmacht’, Spiegel Online, 19 December 2008. 78. Roman Herzog and Lüder Gerken, ‘Europa entmachtet uns und unsere Vertreter’, Die Welt, 17 February 2007. 79. See footnote 4. 80. Joschka Fischer, ‘Deutschland versagt als Führungsmacht’, Spiegel Online, 19 December 2008. 81. Horst Köhler, ‘Die Glaubwürdigkeit der Freiheit’, Berlin Address, 24 March 2009. 82. International Herald Tribune, 10 December 2008. 83. Thatcher (1995), p. 791.

5

Germany’s New Foreign Policy Identity

1. Karl-Rudolf Korte (1998) ‘Unbefangen und gelassen. Über die außenpolitische Normalität der Berliner Republik’, Internationale Politik, 53:12, pp. 3–12, p. 5.

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Notes 163

2. See also Douglas Webber (2001) ‘Introduction: German European and Foreign Policy before and after Unification’, German Politics, 10:1, pp. 1–18. 3. Rainer Baumann and Gunther Hellmann (2001) ‘Germany and the Use of Military Force: “Total War”, the “Culture of Restraint” and the Quest for Normality’, German Politics, 10:1, pp. 61–82. See also Thomas U. Berger (1996) ‘Norms, Identity and National Security in Germany and Japan’ in Peter J. Katzenstein (ed.) The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press), pp. 325–326. 4. William E. Paterson (2003) ‘Germany and Europe’ in Stephen Padgett, William E. Paterson and Gordon Smith (eds) Developments in German Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 206–226, p. 211. 5. Quoted in Jonathan Wright (1996) ‘The Role of Britain in West German Foreign Policy since 1949’, German Politics, 5:1, pp. 26–42, p. 29. 6. Quoted in Gregor Schöllgen (2004) Der Auftritt. Deutschlands Rückkehr auf die Weltbühne (Berlin: Ullstein Verlag), p. 236. 7. Quoted in Schöllgen (2004), p. 236. 8. Jeffrey K. Olick (2007) The Politics of Regret (London: Routledge), p. 37. 9. Elizabeth Pond (1999) The Rebirth of Europe (Washington: Brookings Institution Press), p. 205. 10. Pond (1999), p. 195. 11. Quoted in Schöllgen (2004), p. 74. 12. Gerhard Schröder (2006) Entscheidungen. Mein Leben in der Politik (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe), p. 146. 13. Roman Herzog, ‘Ansprache bei der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik’, 13 March 1995. 14. Roman Herzog, ‘Ansprache bei der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik’, 13 March 1995. 15. Adrian Hyde-Price (2003) ‘Foreign and Security Policy’ in Stephen Padgett, William E. Paterson and Gordon Smith (eds) Developments in German Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 184–205, p. 188. 16. For an account of the recent changes, see also Beverly Crawford (2007) Power and German Foreign Policy: Embedded Hegemony in Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). 17. Dieter Schloten and Wolfgang Bruckmann (1999) ‘Neubestimmung deutscher Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik’ in Karl Theodor Schuon (ed.) Deutschland in globaler Verantwortung. Perspektiven einer neuen deutschen Außenpolitik im Spannungsfeld von UNO, OSZE and NATO (Berlin: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag), pp. 17–30, p. 17. 18. Karl Theodor Schuon (1999) ‘Deutschland auf dem Weg zu einer neuen weltpolitischen Orientierung’ in Karl Theodor Schuon (ed.) Deutschland in globaler Verantwortung. Perspektiven einer neuen deutschen Außenpolitik im Spannungsfeld von UNO, OSZE and NATO (Berlin: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag), pp. 9–14. 19. Gerhard Schröder, Regierungserklärung, 10 November 1998.

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164

20. 21. 22. 23.

24. 25.

26. 27. 28.

29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

44. 45. 46. 47. 48.

Notes

Joschka Fischer, Interview, Der Tagesspiegel, 5 November 1998. Gerhard Schröder, Regierungserklärung, 10 November 1998. Joschka Fischer, Interview, Der Tagesspiegel, 5 November 1998. Ruth Wittlinger and Martin Larose (2007) ‘No Future for Germany’s Past? Collective Memory and German Foreign Policy’, German Politics, 16:4, pp. 481–495. Schröder (2006), p. 85. In theory, it would have been possible for the government to claim that it could not take part in the Kosovo War because there was no UN mandate. Deutscher Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll, 248. Sitzung. Bonn, 16 October 1998. Deutscher Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll, 21. Sitzung. Bonn, 24 February 1999. SPD Party Conference, Protokoll, Bonn, 12 April 1999, pp. 112–113, available at http://www.april1999.spd-parteitag.de/dokumentation. pdf. Scott Erb (2003) German Foreign Policy: Navigating a New Era (London: Lynne Rienner), p. 147. Gerhard Schröder, Regierungserklärung, 26 March 1999. Gerhard Schröder, ‘Erklärung zur aktuellen Lage im Kosovo’, 16 April 1999. Schröder (2006), p. 84. Schröder (2006), p. 85. Schröder (2006), p. 111. Gerhard Schröder, Regierungserklärung, 12 September 2001. Schröder (2006), p. 176. Schröder (2006), p.180. Schröder (2006), p. 185. See Klaus Larres (2003) ‘Mutual Incomprehension: U.S.-German Value Gaps Beyond Iraq’, The Washington Quarterly, 26:2, pp. 23–42. Quoted in Schöllgen (2004), p. 229. Deutscher Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll, 253. Sitzung, 13 September 2002, see also Plenarprotokoll, 32. Sitzung, 14 March 2003. Schröder (2006), p. 85. Hanns Maull, Sebastian Harnisch and Constantin Grund (eds) (2003) Deutschland im Abseits: Rot-Grüne Außenpolitik 1998–2003 (Baden-Baden: Nomos). Hanns W. Maull (ed.) (2006) Germany’s Uncertain Power: Foreign Policy of the Berlin Republic (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Schöllgen (2004). Schöllgen (2004), p. 236. In the Regierungsprogramm 2002–2006, one heading read ‘Die Vereinten Nationen stärken’. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, ‘Rede vor dem Deutschen Bundestag’, 30 November 2005.

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Notes 165

49. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, ‘Rede anläßlich der Amtsübernahme als Bundesaußenminister’, 23 November 2005. 50. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, ‘Rede anläßlich der Amtsübernahme als Bundesaußenminister’, 23 November 2005. 51. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Interview, Bild am Sonntag, 28 November 2005. 52. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Interview, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 6 March 2006. 53. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, ‘Rede zur Beteiligung bewaffneter deutscher Streitkräfte an der United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)’, Speech to the Bundestag, 19 September 2006. 54. Frankfurter Rundschau, 7 September 2006. 55. CDU, CSU and SPD, Koalitionsvertrag, 11 November 2005. 56. CDU, CSU and FDP, Koalitionsvertrag, 26 October 2009. 57. Spiegel Online, 22 September 2004. 58. Spiegel Online, 24 September 2004. 59. Wulf Kansteiner (2006) ‘Losing the War, Winning the Memory Battle: The Legacy of Nazism, World War II, and the Holocaust in the Federal Republic of Germany’ in Richard Ned Lebow, Wulf Kansteiner and Claudio Fogu (eds) The Politics of Memory in Postwar Europe (Durham, NC: Duke University Press), pp. 102–146, p. 104. 60. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, ‘Rede anläßlich der Amtsübernahme als Bundesaußenminister’, 23 November 2005. 61. Donald Tusk, Interview, FAZ.NET, 10 December 2007. 62. The Washington Post, 8 October 2006. 63. Erb (2003), p. 150. 64. See footnote 3. 65. Deutscher BundeswehrVerband (2007), ‘Bericht zur Mitgliederbefragung des Deutschen BundeswehrVerbandes (Strohmeier-Studie)’, Universität Passau. 66. Stephen Szabo, ‘The Return of the German Problem’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2 February 2004. 67. Angela Merkel and US President Barack Obama, Press Conference, Dresden, 5 June 2009.

Conclusion: German National Identity in the Twenty-First Century 1. Der Spiegel, 21, 18 May 2009. 2. Homi K. Bhabha (1990) Nation and Narration (London: Routledge) has used these terms to examine cultural representations of the nation. 3. Ludwig Watzal (2007) ‘Patriotismus’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte. Beilage zur Wochenzeitung Das Parlament, 1–2, p. 2. 4. Facts about Germany (Frankfurt: Societät Verlag, 1992), p. 165.

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Notes

5. Edgar Wolfrum (2006) Die geglückte Demokratie (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta), p. 12. 6. David P. Conradt (1989) ‘Changing German Political Culture’ in Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba (eds) The Civic Culture Revisited (London: Sage), pp. 212–272, p. 223. 7. Andrei S. Markovits and Simon Reich (1997) The German Predicament: Memory and Power in the New Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press), p. 204.

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Index 9/11, 128, 129, 135

Bohrer, Karl-Heinz, 61 Boutros-Ghali, Boutros, 118–119 Brandt, Willy, 6, 22, 33, 49, 58, 63, 117 Brecht, Bertold, 8 Brezhnev Doctrine, 56 Britain, 26, 48, 58, 62, 92, 101–102, 105, 107, 116, 117, 118, see also United Kingdom Bubis, Ignatz, 28 Buchenwald, 20, 42–43 Bundesbank, 72, 73, 74, 77 Bundesrat, 76, 109, 110 Bundestag, 7, 8, 22, 33–34, 38, 55, 58, 59, 67–68, 81–82, 102, 108–110, 120, 124, 128, 132 Bush Doctrine, see US National Security Strategy Bush, George H. W., 11, 59, 118 Bush, George W., 127, 129, 134, 137–138

Adenauer, Konrad, 2, 52, 102, 116–117 Adorno, Theodor W., 18, 72 Afghanistan, 128–129, 130–131, 132–133 Agenda 2010, 80–82 Alliance for Germany, 57 Allianz für Deutschland, see Alliance for Germany Al-Qaida, 128, 129–130 Ampelmännchen, 65 Anderson, Benedict, 12 Anthem, 49, 58, 59, 106 Antifascism, 19, 20 Antimilitarism, 13, 101–102, 116, 119, 120, 121, 131, 136, 137, 144–145 Arendt, Hannah, 21–22 Auschwitz trial, 22 Baader-Meinhof Gang, 74 Basic Law, 2–3, 7, 8, 39, 48, 51–52, 62, 87, 94, 108–110, 120, 139 ‘Basic narrative’, 4, 25, 134 Beck, Ulrich, 82–84, 89 Berlin airlift, 120, 128 capital and seat of government, 7–9, 139 Centre against Expulsions, 41 fall of Wall, 58–59 Holocaust Memorial, 14, 33–35 Berlin Republic, 9–16 Biedenkopf, Kurt, 97 Birthler Authority, 67 Birthler, Marianne, 67 Bitburg, 23–24 Blair, Tony, 10, 31, 79–80

CDU (Christian Democratic Union), 5, 41, 43, 72, 97, 103, 133 Centre Against Expulsions, 36, 41, 140 Chirac, Jacques, 10, 102 ‘Civilian Power’, 116 Clinton, Bill, 31 Coalition agreement, 41, 103–104, 133, 134, 135 Cold War, 8, 9, 10, 17, 45, 47–48, 55, 115, 117, 118, 128, 129, 133, 137 Collapse of communism, 14, 54–62, 94, see also East German Revolution and fall of the Wall

181

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182

Index

Combative democracy, see militant democracy ‘Communicative silence’, 20 Communist Platform, 87 Compensation for forced labour, 33, 35, 42, 140 ‘Confident modesty’, 132–133 Constitution, see Basic Law or European constitution Constitutional Commission, 139 ‘Constitutional patriotism’, 4, 51–52, 75 Convention on the Future of Europe, 101 Croatia, 135 CSU (Christian-Social Union), 5, 41, 103, 133 ‘Culture of restraint’, 4, 10, 116, 133, 136 Day of German Unity, 48, 62 D-Day commemorations, 38, see also Normandy landings De Gaulle, Charles, 102 De Maizière, Lothar, 57–58 D’Estaing, Giscard, 102 D-mark, 61, 77, 95 ‘Double containment’, 93 ‘Double past’, 29–30, 67 Dregger, Alfred, 5 Dresden, 36, 59–60, 138 DVU (German People’s Union), 87 Eastern (and Central) Europe, 36, 45, 54, 55, 56, 94, 100–101, 112 Eastern enlargement of NATO, 138 of the European Union, 95, 100, 112 East German Revolution, 57, 141, see also fall of the Wall and collapse of communism ‘Economic miracle’, 4–5, 9, 39, 69, 72–73, 85, see also Wirschaftswunder

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ECSC, see European Coal and Steel Community Eichmann trial, 22 Erhard, Ludwig, 73 Ersatz identities, 14, 50–54, 113, 141 Euro, 83, 96, 97, 98 European Coal and Steel Community, 92–93 European Common Foreign and Security Policy, 94, 100, 101 European constitution, 98, 100, 101, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107 European Economic and Monetary Union, 94 European Political Union, 94 European Security and Defence Identity, 100 Europeanisation, 12–13, 29, 88, 99, 142 Euroscepticism, 92, 94–95, 97, 99, 109, 143 Expellees (and expulsions), 20, 24, 36, 37, 38, 41–42, 45, 133–134, 140 fall of the Wall, 19, 25, 26, 54–62, 64, 65, 68, 69, 84, 117, 142, see also East German Revolution and collapse of communism FDP (Free Democratic Party), 74, 103 Federal Constitutional Court, 12–13, 108–110, 113, 119–120, 124, 143 Federation of Expellees, 45 Fischer, Joschka, 132, 133 and Europe, 94, 96, 100–102, 107, 109, 112, 113, 122–123 and Nazi past, 123 and the Balkans, 121, 125–126, 128 on victims discourse, 36–37 see also red-green coalition ‘Flourishing landscapes’, 63, 77, 89

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Index

France, 4, 26, 30, 48, 62, 92, 93–94, 98–99, 102–103, 107, 113, 116, 131–132, 135, 137 Gauck Authority, 67 Gauck, Joachim, 67 GDR, see German Democratic Republic Gellner, Ernest, 12 German Democratic Republic and German division, 47–50, 52–54 and the Nazi past, 18–20 anthem, 49, 59 collapse of communism, 14, 54–62, see also fall of the Wall constitution, 49–50 peaceful revolution, 40, 57, 141 German model, 18, 74, 76, 77–84, 88, 90, 142, see also Modell Deutschland German unification and Europe, 93–95 and the Nazi past, 26 effect of, 1, 6–12 events leading to, 54–62 socio-economic developments since, 77–84 vs ‘inner unity’, 62–70 German victimhood, 20–22, 35–38, 41–42, 45 Germany Treaty, 3, 48, 93 Globalisation and economy, 68–69, 78–79, 88, 100, 142 of foreign policy, 119 of memory, 29, 30, 31–32, 45–46, 140 Global memory, 18, 31, 140 Goldhagen, Daniel, 26–27 Grand coalition and Europe, 103–108 and Holocaust memory, 40–43 foreign policy, 132–135, 136–138

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183

relations with Israel, 40–41 see also Angela Merkel Grass, Günter, 26, 36, 51, 52, 61 Greek economic crisis, 113 Greens, 121, 122, 124–126, 128, see also red-green coalition Grotewohl, Otto, 20 Grüner Pfeil, 65 Guantánamo, 134–135 Gulf War (1991), 118, 119, 137 Habermas, Jürgen, 6, 23, 25, 30, 51, 60, 61, 68, 75 Halbwachs, Maurice, 68 Hallstein Doctrine, 47, 49 Hartz reforms, 81–83 Heinemann, Gustav, 5, 141 Herzog, Roman, 7–8, 29, 30, 39, 64, 79, 81, 112, 119 Heym, Stefan, 61 Historians’ dispute, 24–25, 26, 30, 43, 54 Historikerstreit, see historians’ dispute Hitler, 4, 5, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22–23, 25–26, 27–28, 32, 38, 39, 61, 71, 140 Hobsbawm, Eric, 12 Holocaust Memorial, 14, 33–35, 42, 43, 140 Holocaust Memorial Day, 30 Holocaust memory and the memory of German suffering, 29, 35–37 challenges to, 28–29, 35–37, 42–43 institutionalisation of, 29, 30–31 internationalisation of, 29, 31–32, see also globalisation of memory in the GDR, 18–20 in the 1990s, 26–32 in West Germany, 20–26 under the Merkel governments, 40–43

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184

Index

Holocaust memory – continued under the Schröder governments, 32–40 Honecker, Erich, 49, 57 International Day of Commemoration for Holocaust Victims, 30 Investigatory Commission, 67 Iraq, 102–103, 114, 120–121, 125, 129–130, 131–132, 135, 137, 145 Israel, 40–41, 117, 121 Kissinger, Henry, 116 Kogon, Eugen, 22 Kohl, Helmut, 6–7, 40, 77, 124, 143 and European integration, 93–95, 96, 97, 99, 100, 102, 104, 105, 111, 143 and foreign policy, 117, 118, 119, 120–121, 124, 125, 126–127, 144 and Germany’s Nazi past, 23–24 and post-unification Germany, 79, 89 and the national question, 48, 55 and unification, 58–60, 62, 63, 77, 93–94, 100, 142 Ten-Point Plan, 59, 94 Kosovo War, 10, 123–127, 128, 130–131 Krenz, Egon, 57

Mann, Thomas, 94 Maron, Monika, 61 Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, see Holocaust Memorial Merkel, Angela and Centre against Expulsions, 41–42, 140 and Europe, 103–108, 110–111, 112, 113–114, 144 and Germany’s international role/foreign policy, 132–135, 136–138 and Germany’s Nazi past, 40–43, 44, 140 relations with Israel, 40–41 Militant democracy, 3 Miloševic, Slobodan, 123–124, 126 Mitterrand, François, 24, 93–94, 102 Modell Deutschland, 13, 15, 68–69, 73–74, 76, 77–84, 88, 142, 145, see also German model Modrow, Hans, 57 Multilateralism, 10, 92, 116, 119, 131–132, 144

Lafontaine, Oskar, 26, 61 Lebanon, 133–134 Left Party, 86–87, 111 Leipzig, 59, 97 Lisbon strategy, 104 Lisbon Treaty, 13, 108–110, 113, 143 Lübbe, Hermann, 20, 67

National question, 14, 47–50, 50–54, 55, 56, 141–142 National symbols, 46, 58, 59–60, 113, 140–141 NATO, 91, 116, 118, 119–120, 121, 122, 123–124, 125, 126, 127–128, 138 Neues Forum, see New Forum New Forum, 56 ‘Normalization’ (and ‘normalcy’), 5–6, 10, 23, 30, 32–33, 40, 43, 50 Normandy landings, 21, 102, see also D-Day commemorations NPD (National Democratic Party), 87 Nuremberg trials, 20

Maastricht Treaty, 94–95, 98, 100

Obama, Barack, 138 Oettinger, Günther, 43

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Index

Ostalgie, 65–66 Ostpolitik, 6, 48, 49, 115–116 Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis, 103 ‘Partners in leadership’, 11, 118 Patriotism, 4, 46, 51–52, 54, 75, 141 PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism), 69, 81, 125, 132 Persson, Göran, 31 Pöhl, Karl-Otto, 77 Poland, 41, 55, 104, 136–137, 138 Politburo, 57 Political extremism, 87 ‘Post-conventional’ identity, 51, see also post-national identity Post-national identity, 4, 11, 51–52, 53, 110, 139, 140–141 Putin, Vladimir, 134 Reagan, Ronald, 23–24, 55 Red-Army Faction, see BaaderMeinhof Gang Red-green coalition and Europe, 95–103 and Holocaust memory, 32–40 foreign policy, 121–132 see also Gerhard Schröder and Joschka Fischer Reform Treaty, see Treaty of Lisbon Reformstau (policy gridlock), 79 Re-militarisation of foreign policy, 66, 118, 129, 137 Report of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, 87 Report on the State of German Unity, 63, 86 Report on the State of the Nation in Divided Germany, 55, 58, 63 Rhineland capitalism (or model), 72–73, 80, see also social market economy Russia, 21, 37, 103, 125, 128, 134, 138

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185

Sachsenhausen, 20 Sarkozy, Nicolas, 107 Schäfer, Hermann, 42–43 Schäuble, Wolfgang, 135 Scheel, Walter, 22–23 Schmidt, Helmut, 102, 117, 135 Schröder, Gerhard and Europe, 95–103, 110–113, 143 and foreign policy (and Germany’s international role), 8, 10–11, 119, 121–132 and Germany’s Nazi past, 32–40, 42, 44, 136, 140 and Iraq, 102–103, 114, 130, 131–132, 135 and reform/Agenda 2010, 80–82 and ‘the German way’, 130, 131 Blair-Schröder Paper, 79–80 on move of parliament and government to Berlin, 7–8, 9 on unification, 61–63 see also red-green coalition Second World War, end of, Anniversaries 25th, 22 30th, 22–23 40th, 23, 37 50th, 27–28, 39 60th, 37–39, 102, 132 SED (Socialist Unity Party), 50, 53, 56, 57, 65, 67–68, 81 Semi-sovereignty, 2, 3, 6 Slovenia, 135 Smith, Anthony, 12 Social market economy, 5, 15, 39, 64, 69, 72–73, 77, 80, 84, 88, see also Rhineland capitalism ‘Soft power’, 1, 72, 90, 113, 116, 136, 143 Sonderweg, 126, 130 Soviet Union, 10, 35, 37, 38, 60, 62, 115 SPD (Social Democratic Party), 7, 26, 33, 57–58, 61, 62–63, 79–80, 81–82, 86, 87–88,

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Index

SPD (Social Democratic Party) – continued 100, 103, 120–122, 124–126, 133 see also red-green coalition Staatssicherheit, 30, 56, 57, 67, 79 Stability and Growth Pact, 99 Stalin, Joseph, 48–49 Stasi, see Staatssicherheit Steinbach, Erika, 45 Steinmeier, Frank-Walter, 40–41, 132–134, 136 and ‘confident modesty’, 132–133 see also grand coalition Sternberger, Dolf, 51, 75 Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust, 31 Struck, Peter, 7 Stürmer, Michael, 24–25 Ten-Point Plan for Policy on Germany, 59, 94 Thatcher, Margaret, 76, 93, 114, 118 Thierse, Wolfgang, 7 Trabi, 65 Transitional justice, 18, 66–67 Treaty of Amsterdam, 99, 105, 106 Treaty of Lisbon (also Reform Treaty), 13, 106, 108–110, 113, 143 Treaty of Nice, 99, 101, 102, 105 Treaty on European Union, see Maastricht Treaty Treaty on German Unity, 94, see also Unification Treaty Treaty on the Creation of a Monetary, Economic and Social Union, 77 Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, 3, 62 Truman, Harry S., 92–93 Turkey, 103 Tusk, Donald, 41, 136–137 ‘Two-nation-theory’, 49

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Two-plus-Four Treaty, 35, see also Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany ‘Two-state-theory’, 49 Ulbricht Doctrine, 49 Ulbricht, Walter, 20, 49 Unemployment, 15, 63, 66, 68, 73, 74, 77–78, 80, 82–84, 85, 88, 89, 98, 114, 142 Unification Treaty, 26, 61, 62, see also Treaty on German Unity United Kingdom, 73, 76, 143, see also Britain United States, 3, 4, 10, 23, 31, 35, 48, 62, 91, 92–93, 114, 118, 120, 127–128, 131–132, 134–135, 136, 137–138 UN Security Council, 16, 102–103, 127, 132, 135 US National Security Strategy, 129 Verfassungspatriotismus, 51, see also ‘constitutional patriotism’ Verfassungsschutzbericht, see Report of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution Vergangenheitsbewältigung, 5–6, 17–18 Volkskammer, 19, 57 Von Weizsäcker, Richard, 23, 28, 37, 139 Walser, Martin, 28–29, 30–31 Walser-Bubis debate, 28 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 22 WASG (Wahlalternative Arbeit und Soziale Gerechtigkeit), 81 Wehrmacht, 26–27, 118, 125 Weimar Republic, 2, 6, 71 Welfare state, 66, 68–69, 73, 74–75, 76, 77–78, 80, 82, 87–88, 89, 109, 114, 142–143 Westalgie, 66

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Index 187

Western integration (or orientation), 39, 48–49, 115–116 Westerwelle, Guido, 134 West Germany and Europe, 91–93 and German division, 47–50 and the Nazi past, 20–26 as legal successor of Third Reich, 19, 47 attitudes towards democracy, 71–72, 74–76

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economic development, 72–74, 75 ersatz identity, 50–54 foreign policy, 115–117 general development after 1945, 1–6 welfare state, 73, 77 Wirtschaftswunder 91, see also economic miracle World Cup, 140–141

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