ROMANIAN REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, I, 2, 2009

THE ‘GERMAN PROBLEM’ THEN AND NOW: FROM THE

THREAT OF A GERMAN EUROPE TO THE EDIFICATION OF A

EUROPEAN GERMANY

Emanuel Copilaș*

Abstract As Thomas Mann argued about postwar Germany, its future depended on its

power to return to its European cultural, economical and political sources. The

desideratum of a German Europe was eradicated from political and military

agendas of its new leaders, but especially from the minds of the ordinary Germans.

The core and also the stake of the Cold War, the ‘German Problem’ was offered a

sustained European and international response which eventually transformed the

former unstable and aggressive power into the stability center of the European

project. The new German identity can be understood only in the broader context of

the European Union as an enlarged form of a cultural and political community,

both containing the ‘German Problem’ and also ensuring and enriching its

development. Starting with Bismarck’s Germany and ending with the post-Cold

War Germany, this study proposes an analysis of the metamorphosis the German

identity was subjected to as a corollary of the German behavior within the

international context.

The source of change trough which the Germans perceived themselves and

the others was, on its turn, internationally induced: as socio- constructivist

theorists argues, states, as communities, extract their identities trough a

* Emanuel Copilaş, teaching assistant, West University of Timişoara, email:

copilasemanuel@ yahoo.com. The documentation for this article was partially facilitated by

an AMPOSDRU scholarship, obtained trough the following grant: Investește în oameni!

FONDUL SOCIAL EUROPEAN, Programul Operaţional Sectorial pentru Dezvoltarea

Resurselor Umane 2007-2013, proiectul „STUDIILE DOCTORALE FACTOR MAJOR DE

DEZVOLTARE AL CERCETĂRILOR SOCIO-UMANE SI UMANISTE‛.

Emanuel Copilaş

24

peremptory interaction with the international environment. The process is ongoing

and entails gradual transformations both for international actors and their milieu,

which proves that identities are not given, objective, fixed, but permanently

subjected to changes coming from a multitude of directions. The German identity

experienced this kind of change most intensely after the end of the Second World

War, when it renounced its Prussian legacy in favor of its European one.

Key words: ‘German Problem’, national identity, Cold War, civilian

power, European Germany

Introduction From the second half of the 19th century, when it was unified by

Otto von Bismarck, and until the end of the Second World War, when the

Allied forces crushed the Third Reich and freed Europe from the Nazi

reign, Germany represented the central issue of European security.

Conducting an aggressive diplomatic behavior towards its neighbors and

challenging the great powers of the continent (like France or Great Britain),

this state was responsible for the two greatest conflagrations the last

century had witnessed. No wonder that after 1945 its territory was divided

between the four winners of the war, the United States, France, Great

Britain and the Soviet Union. Only the unexpected emergence of the Cold

War led to the building of two German states, placed within antagonistic

ideological camps; in the absence of this unusual confrontation, Germany’s

future as a political entity would have been rather uncertain.

Germany’s bellicose behavior was triggered by its authoritarian

political leadership, but the larger social layers were not at all hostile to it.1

After 1945, this disposition will know a radical change. The Federal

Republic of Germany made possible an economic miracle and a sustainable

democracy which impressed not only the West, but also devoted

communists from East Germany.2 However, this success would not have

been possible without a reconfiguration of the German national identity. To

the sense of duty and the sedulousness, the Germans added democracy, a

1 Christian conte von Krockow, Germanii în secolul lor (1890-1990), București: All, 1999, pp.

33-42. 2 Bernard Brigouleix, Zidul Berlinului, 1961-1989, București: Lucman, 2005.

The ‘German Problem’ Then and Now: from the Threat of <

25

peaceful behavior towards other peoples and the belief that every nation

can pursue its interest and achieve its security only within international

communities united by similar values and objectives and permanently

interacting and maintaining friendly relationships with other similar

communities.

Using a socio-constructivist methodology, I intend to prove that

postwar Germany became a respected member of international security

and economical-political organizations such as NATO or the EC (EU) only

after it redefined its identity by embedding it the larger European one and

renouncing the Sonderweg, namely the idea that Germany must become

modern using its own, unique path, different from the common direction

used by the rest of the European countries. This process started and

advanced trough permanent interactions with other states and cultures,

because every state, constructivists argue, extracts its identity from the

relations it has with the international environment. Furthermore, political,

social and cultural identities are not fixed; they redefine themselves by

interacting with the international environment which, on its turn, changes

for the same reason.3 Following this argument, Bismarck’s, Wilhelm II’ and

even Hitler’s Germany were influenced in a great extent by the

international environment, but a consistent change in the way Germans

perceive themselves and the others occurred only after the Second World

War. This represented the main premise of the Federal’s Republic and than

of reunited Germany’s firm adhesion to European institutions, norm and

values and to a broaden sense community in general.

Challenging the European order: the Prussian Germany

When writing about the ‘German Problem’, John Ieuan underlines

three major factors that should be taken into account in the attempt to

understand it. The first consists in the country’s ‘geographical location in

3 Michael Barnett, ‘Social Constructivism’, in John Baylis; Steve Smith, Patricia Owens, The

Globalization of World Politics. An introduction to international relations, New York: Oxford

University Press, 2008, pp. 160-173; Christian Reus-Smit, ‘Constructivism’, in Scott Burchill;

Richard Devetak; Andrew Linklater; Matthew Paterson; Christian Reus-Smit; Jacqui True,

Theories of International Relations, New York: Palgrave, 2001, pp. 209-230.

Emanuel Copilaş

26

the very centre of Europe with all its diplomatic and strategic

consequences’, while the second one resides in its ‘relative size, in

comparison with its neighbors and other European states’, and on its

‘human and material resources’. Beside these, the third factor is of

particular importance. It is centered on the

‘political psychology, culture and behavior of *the+ ruling elites

who have been charged not only by foreign but also by German historians

and political scientists with lack of a sense of proportion and realism and

a tendency to pursue unlimited goals. Germans have been characterized

and perceived as unstable, restless and obsessed with an acute and

morbid anxiety (angst) bordering at times on hysteria.’4

This argument is very important because it offers one key

dimension, often underrated, of the ‘German problem’ as a whole: beside

geography and demography, psychology is indispensable for a pertinent

approach of the subject. Germans perceived themselves as an encircled and

pressed nation, and tried to overcome this shortcoming by gaining space

and the respect of other nations. Contemporary Germany is still in the

centre of the continent and has a numerous population, but it understands

itself now as a part of the European construction, not as a solitary

international actor.

Since the modern era, France benefited form the political

atomization of the Roman-German Empire. Only two German states were

recognized as authentic European powers: Austria and, from the 18th

century, Prussia, but they were second rank powers in comparison with

France. After Napoleon conquered the centre of the continent in 1806, he

abolished the now symbolic Roman-German Empire and created instead

the Rhine Confederation, which lasted until 1813. After two years, the

Vienna Congress created a new political framework for the German states

and free cities, namely the German Confederation. It represented a very

weak political union, due to the fact that the executive power remained at

the level of local governments, and it was not an international right

subject.5 Dissolved as a consequence of the national and liberal revolutions

4 John Ieuan, ‘The Re-emergence of ‚the German Question‛: a United Germany and

European Security and Stability’, in David Armstrong; Erik Goldstein, The End of the Cold

War, London: Franck Cass & CO. LTD, 1990, p. 127. 5 Peter Alter, Problema Germană și Europa, București: Corint, 2004, pp. 33-63.

The ‘German Problem’ Then and Now: from the Threat of <

27

of 1848, it was restored in 1851, but only to prove its ‘fragile and transitory

nature’.6 Within it, the rivalries between Prussia and Austria grew stronger.

After a short war which took place in 1866, Prussia defeated Austria and

became the dominant German power. This result allowed Otto von

Bismarck, the Prussian prime minister, to put an end to the obsolete

Confederation7 and to plan the creation of a unified German state,

dominated by Prussia. As a firs step towards this objective, he created

around the Prussian state the North German Confederation, and reinforced

the relations with the Southern German states.

Bismarck’s intensions were disregarded by the French Emperor,

Napoleon III, which supported Austria during the 1866 war. After four

years, France and Prussia were engaged in a short military conflict which

was won by the last, with the help of the other German states. Under

Prussia’s influence, Germany became in 1871 a unified national state.8

The unification affected profoundly the European balance of power.

Germany was now the strongest state on the continent, and this fact rose

feelings of unrest among the other European powers. Bismarck was very

much aware of them and the dangers it could entail. In order to prevent

‘the nightmare of coalitions’ (an alliance between France, Russia and the

British Empire against Germany) he conceived a very prudent diplomacy,

signing , over the course of the years, a number of treaties with Austria,

Italy and Russia. In order to gain the trust of its allies, he pragmatically

rejected the idea of the Reich as a colonial power. The German fleet was

insufficiently developed to manage a logistic capability of this size – he

argued - and, in case of war, the colonies would prove to be too vulnerable

and expensive to defend.9 His ‘system of alliances’ was therefore very

flexible, and its primary objective was to balance the existing tensions

between the other powers.10 It was also very complex and fragile, as he’s

successors would later find out.

Although a highly experienced diplomat, Bismarck annexed the

French provinces Alsace and Loren, a gesture which will affect profoundly

6 Ibidem, p. 95. 7 Ibidem, p. 101. 8 Ibidem, pp. 103-105; Henry Kissinger, Diplomația, București: Bic All, 2003, pp. 100-101; Bruce

Waller, Bismarck, București: Historia, 2006, pp. 52-55. 9 Bruce Waller, op. cit., p. 128. 10 Ibidem, pp. 85-88.

Emanuel Copilaş

28

the relations between the two countries11 and will also constitute one of the

main reasons for which France fought against Wilhelmian Germany during

the First World War. It appears that he hesitated in doing so, but he’s

generals were eager incorporate these territories into the new Reich.

However, the annexation of Alsace and Loren was one of the main motives

for which the German unification was perceived as a threat by the rest of

the European powers.12

Bismarck’s Empire was a very heterogeneous one. It contained

many national minorities, towards which a rather oppressive policy was

carried out. Furthermore, the Germans themselves were divided along

confessional lines: Protestants in the North and Catholics in the South. This

led to the so-called Kulturkampf, in which Bismarck tried to limit as much as

possible the Catholic influences over education and the parish offices. The

Roman Catholic Church was seen as relay trough which the Papal Chair

could interfere in the internal affairs of the German state.13 Politically, the

socialists were marginalized as Bismarck and his associates feared and

combated the revolutionary tendencies spreading among the workers,

which could entail damaging consequences for the new state. The memory

of the Paris Commune was very disquieting for the conservative Prussian

influenced government, therefore it created a strong social network which

successfully undermined the socialist attempts to seize power.14 The liberal

forces were also discredited as having a disorganizing influence over the

precarious social, cultural and political unity of the Empire. The German

conscience went against the Enlightenment ideals like liberty or equality;

instead, it valued ideas like order, duty or justice and it tried to affirm,

especially after Bismarck’s resignation from 1890, its own, special road to

modernization (Sonderweg), different and even hostile in respect with the

rest of Europe. Only after 1945 will Germany finally renounce the powerful

and harmful myth of the Sonderweg and gradually take its place among the

cultural, economical and political leaders of united Europe.

11 Jean-Michel Gaillard; Anthony Rowley, Istoria continentului european. De la 1850 până la

sfârșitul secolului al XX-lea, Chișinău: Cartier, 2001, p. 74. 12 Peter Alter, op. cit., pp. 104-105. 13 Bruce Waller, op. cit., pp. 97-101; Hagen Schulze, Stat și națiune în istoria europeană, Iași:

Polirom, 2003, p. 237. 14 Hagen Schulze, op. cit., p. 238; Christian conte von Krockow, op. cit., pp. 30-31.

The ‘German Problem’ Then and Now: from the Threat of <

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Although very diverse, Bismarck’s Reich contained two powerful

catalysts. The first one was the Prussian army. Due to the fact that, socially

and politically, the German bourgeoisie never recovered completely after

its destruction which took place during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648)15,

its role as a social and intellectual foundation of democracy had never

materialized. Civil virtues were therefore substituted by military virtues.

The German national conscience was structured to a great extent around

the symbol of the victorious Prussian army. Its prestige was so high that it

consistently penetrated the educational and bureaucratic systems. Hagen

Schulze argues that the teachers and state officials were more found on

their status as reserve officers than on the status their current jobs provided

and they ‘applied in schools and in offices the norms with which they

became familiarized in the army.’16 Even the children were forced to wear

sailor uniforms on Sundays and on holidays.17

The second catalyst was represented by the model of the Prussian

state. In the absence of the bourgeoisie, the authoritarian state assumed the

role of modernizing the social and economic infrastructure. The bourgeois

who wanted to build up its career; it could only do so by becoming a

employee of the state.18 Therefore, Germany’s modernity came from

‘above’, not from ‘below’, although at the end of the century the developed

North and its emerging ‘industrial and commercial bourgeoisie’ fastened

the process.19 Even the Prussian qualities as the respect for duty,

sedulousness and responsibility did not constitute the results of a social-

cultural legacy; on the contrary, they were gradually induced within the

collective mentality since the times of Frederic the Great by the state,

trough the state and for the state.20

Germany entered the 20th century with this militarized, power

valuing identity, which would become the foundation of its national

conscience. The relative easiness trough which Nazism could be grafted on

it becomes therefore, in this light, a little bit clearer. But until that shameful

and horrifying episode of recent German history, I shall focus my attention

15 Christian conte von Krockow, op. cit., p. 38. 16 Hagen Schulze, op. cit., p. 239. 17 Christian conte von Krockow, op. cit., p. 36. 18 Ibidem, p. 38. 19 Jean-Michel Gaillard; Anthony Rowley, op. cit., pp. 258-259. 20 Christian conte von Krockow, op. cit., p. 25.

Emanuel Copilaş

30

on the diplomatic drift that characterized post-Bismarck Germany and

prepared the conditions for the First World War.

Unbalancing Bismarck’s system of alliances: Wilhelm II and

the failure of Weltpolitik

Wilhelm I, the former Prussian king, was proclaimed Kaiser in the

year Germany became a unitary state. After his death, he was replaced in

1888 by Wilhelm II. The new Kaiser fired Bismarck in 1890, ‘refusing to rule

in the shadow of such a dominating figure.’21 Young, ambitious and

arrogant, he sought to intimidate the other European powers and to affirm

his country’s might. However, he acted so in the absence of a certain

purpose and without following a diplomatic strategy.22 Influenced by the

example of France or the British Empire, the Kaiser wished to transform

Germany into a colonial power, although Bismarck specifically avoided

and warned against this temptation, being aware of its lack of gains and the

anxiety it would have rose among the other colonial powers.

Wilhelm’s triumphalism created unrest in France, the British

Empire and Russia. The ‘nightmare of coalitions’ that Bismarck feared so

much was beginning to take shape. In the 1890’s, France and Russia

became allies. When Germany tried to break the encirclement by ‘courting’

Great Britain, its colonial ambitions and London’s lack of interest turned

against it. Even if the German economy and industry were among the most

developed ones on the continent, the colonial temptation was high due to

the prestige and power it was associated with. The backbone of the Kaiser’s

Weltpolitik (global politics) resided in the need of overseas expansion. The

fact that this need was rather a matter of wrongly understood international

prestige, like the Iron Chancellor had proved, remained of little

importance: the impact of the international environment (namely the

British Empire or France) induced the idea that ‘World power is marine

power.’ In this respect, ‘Wilhelm II proved to be a representative of its

21 Henry Kissinger, op. cit., p. 144. 22 Ibidem, p. 145.

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31

epoch, due to the fact that it appeared as the first sailor of the nation and as

a strong promoter of it.’23

The continuous expansion and improvement of the Reich’s fleet

worried the British Empire to the extent that, in 1912, ‘it started discussions

at high military level’ with France and Russia.24 The ‘nightmare of

coalitions’ was now complete: Wilhelm II succeeded in turning all the

European powers (except, of course, Austria) against his country.

Despite its catastrophic failure, Weltpolitik benefited from a strong

popular support. Germany’s ‘citizens in uniforms’25 were appealed by the

romantic ideals of their leader, and they too wanted the Reich to become a

strong and respected colonial power. The Prussian social legacy, based on

the image of the army and the authoritarian leadership, assured the

consonance between the society and the geopolitical ambitions of its

leadership. As Modris Eksteins writes,

‘Weltpolitik was not a foreign policy imposed to the Germans by

the intrigues of a less numerous clique of advisers around the Kaiser. It

reflected a wide spread sentiment, promoted by many eminent intellectuals and

public associations, according to which Germany must either expand itself or be

ruined. This change in politics, accomplished by the start of a naval

construction program and a noisy search of supplementary colonies

provoked, as it was expected, international anxiety regarding the long

term intentions of Germany (my emphasis).’26

Furthermore, Weltpolitik was not even a coherent concept. Geoff

Layton distinguishes, beside the already mentioned geopolitical sense of

the notion, two more complementary approaches. According to the

economical one, the German foreign policy between 1890 and 1914 was

nothing more than a ‘policy destined to contribute to the penetration of the

German capital on new territories and then to stabilize some influence

zones in as much as possible regions of the world.’ The second approach

placed Weltpolitik in direct continuity with the Lebensraum policy, arguing

that it had a racist character and ‘searched to create regions of German

23 Christian conte von Krockow, op. cit., p. 81. 24 Henry Kissinger, op. cit., p. 169. 25 Christian conte von Krockow, op. cit., p. 33. 26 Modris Eksteins, Rites of Spring. The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age, apud. Peter

Alter, op. cit., pp. 119-120.

Emanuel Copilaş

32

influence both over the seas and in the East.’27 In my opinion, the continuity

between Weltpolitik and Lebensraum is forced; although the first was ‘noisy’

and aggressive, it certainly lacked the ideological component the second

one possessed. But whatever its meaning was, the Weltpolitik’s potential

benefits were exceeded by far by its political costs.28

In her famous work, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt

identified two types of imperialism; the shape European foreign policy

took in the last decades of the 19th century and in the first decades of the

20th. The first was classical colonialism, or ‘over the seas` imperialism

practiced by Great Britain, France, Holland, Portugal or Spain, and already

mentioned above. The second was ‘continental imperialism’, based on the

geographic proximity between the ruling center and the peripheries. This

type of imperialism was practiced by the Czarist Empire, but also by

Germany and Austria, and it is also known as PanSlavism or Pan

Germanism. From different reasons, the European powers which did not

possess sufficient colonies ‘over the seas’ tried to compensate by forging a

continental form of imperialism. But, while classical colonialism was

underlined by economic reasons (the expansion of capitalism), the pan-

isms were much more popular to the mobs because they were lacking

concrete, feasible aims, relying instead on vague objectives (like achieving

the ‘deserved’ greatness for the German or the Slavic people), and they

were also dynamic due to their refusal to be limited (and valued) by

specific political programs. They were grafted on a ‘general frame of

27 Geoff Layton, De la Bismarck la Hitler: Germania, 1890-1933, București: All, 2002, p. 55. 28 Following Hannah Arendt’s argumentation, the Marxist geographer and social theorist

David Harvey sustains that capitalism’s expansion at the end of the 19th century

(imperialism, in Lenin’s terminology) contained a paradox. It emerged from national states,

yet it was of global range. Consequently, the philosophy articulating it was bound to

reconcile national identities with international economic expansion. In this way, racism

became the surrogate philosophical legitimating for the global ambitions of European

powers, consistently contributing, after a few decades, to the emergence of Fascism. I

partially agree with the argument. The economical dimension of the colonization process is

undoubtedly the most important, but it is not the only one; non-rational or extra-rational

factors like national pride, prestige or the sense of a groundless cultural superiority and the

competition they entailed are also to be taken into account when trying to understand

European international preeminence in the late 19th century. This kind of attitudes (Francis

Fukuyama refers to them as thymothic) certainly cannot be derived exclusively, as Marxist

theorists argue, from economical explanations. See David Harvey, Noul Imperialism,

Bucureşti: BIC ALL, 2004, pp. 48-52.

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33

mind’29, the same which entailed the popular support for the First World

War and also represented the main inspiration source for totalitarian

movements like Bolshevism and Nazism.30

Germany experienced, to different extents, both types of

imperialism. But, although Weltpolitik was doubled by an aggressive

rhetoric, its task of creating a major colonial empire for Germany was never

achieved. Pan Germanism, on the other hand, was much more successful. It

perfectly coped with the Zeitgeist and it prepared the way, as Hannah

Arendt magnificently pointed out, for the Nazi catastrophe.

War, resentments and the totalitarian drift

The Kaiser’s unrealistic and aggressive foreign policy, combined

with the unrest of the European powers, resulted into the First World War.

Animated by aspiration to become the hegemonic power of the old

continent, Germany firmly sustained its Austrian ally in its conflict with

Serbia regarding the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the heir of the

Austrian throne, without expecting Russia to intervene for its traditional

Serbian ally. But Czar Nicholas II, pressed by the Ministers and the popular

feelings, ordered the military mobilization. Germany declared war to

Russia and than, searching for a fast neutralization of its western neighbor,

to France. In order to reach Paris, the German army invaded Belgium, a

gesture that would convince Great Britain that Germany must be fought

against.31 In 1917, the United States too entered the war, a fact which, along

with the loss of resources in the unexpected ‘trench warfare’, led Germany

to collapse.

The emergence of the war did not disquiet Germans or other

European peoples; on the contrary, it was met with enthusiasm and

perceived as heroic way to break out of ‘the banality of the peaceful

everyday life’.32 The war vertigo contaminated political and social reason.

Its romantic image, popular support and the easiness trough which it was

29 Hannah Arendt, Originile Totalitarismului, București: Humanitas, 1994, p. 300. 30 Ibidem, p. 296. 31 Henry Kissinger, op. cit., pp. 180-187. 32 Christian conte von Krockow, op. cit., p. 93.

Emanuel Copilaş

34

unleashed contrasted painfully with its dreadful consequences, which will

echo all along the interwar period.

From 1916, due to political disorganization, the country was de facto

ruled by the General Staff. Following Germany’s defeat, Kaiser Wilhelm II

abdicated in November 1918. The popular resentments were extremely

high, fueled by the psychological deception of the defeat, the burdensome

conditions of peace imposed by the victorious powers and the myth that

the war was lost not on the battlefield, but ended by the treacherous

leadership who bargained its privileges with the enemy at the expense of

the country. However, the winners could have proved more pitiless: they

could have dismembered the Reich in the attempt of putting an end to the

‘German Problem’. The motive for which they did not resort to this extreme

solution lied in the necessity to preserve a certain balance of power on the

continent. In their opinion, a void of power in the centre of Europe could

have proved to be a transmission belt for the communist revolution which

already took place in Russia, a finality which was to be avoided by all

costs.33 Germany was instead forced to pay huge war compensations and

reduce its army to a great extent.

Social and political turmoil of 1918 led to the appearance of the

Weimer Republic in the following year. Trying to overcome its internal

difficulties, Germany embraced the form of a constitutional republic. In its

first five years, the young republic experienced a period of severe economic

and social crises.34

‘The lack of capital for investments, a profound commercial deficit and the

difficulties of readapting a war economy to the consequences of peace

were aggravated by claims aiming at the payment of war reparations,

solicited by the allies and by the loss of some important industrial regions

according to the dispositions of the Versailles Treaty. However, the major

difficulty of the precarious economical situation of Germany was the

immense governmental deficit and the decline of the Mark provoked by it,

which was reflected in the internal situation by the growth of inflation.’35

33 Peter Alter, op. cit., pp. 138-139. 34 E.H. Carr, International relations between the two world wars (1919-1939), London: MacMillan,

1947, pp. 135-139. 35 Geoff Layton, op. cit., p. 117.

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35

The republic remained very fragile along its entire existence.

Politically, the right wing and the left wing were involved in endless

disputes and, beside the economical and social reasons mentioned above,

the Germans lacked, as we have seen, a democratic political culture. More

than half of the Republic’s entire existence was underlined by crisis of all

sorts. Only during the Chancellor Gustav Stresemann’s leadership (1923-

1929) were the signs of improvement beginning to emerge36, but they were

insufficient for legitimizing the short and precarious German democracy.

The Weimar Republic’s collapse was entailed by the global

economic crisis which emerged in 1929 and ended in 1933, which had a

devastating effect over the European economies. Fearing a communist

revolution, Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, the president of the Republic,

named after the consummation of the alternative solutions and with strong

hesitation, Adolph Hitler Chancellor in 1933. In the social and political

turmoil from the beginning of the 1930’s unemployment rose dramatically,

while the political scene was divided between communists and national-

socialists. Unwanted and distrusted, the fragile and ephemeral German

democracy left way for the cruelest form of political dictatorship: the

national-socialist regime. The rise of Hitler and its NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche

Arbeit Partei) is understandable trough a combination of four different

factors. The first one is of economical nature. According to Christian von

Crockow, ‘The take-over of power occurred in the most favorable

momentum, not at the peak, but at the end of the world economic crisis.’37

The German rearmament process, which begun secretly during the first

years of the Weimer Republic, coupled with ‘the massive growth of

working places in the public domain’ resulted in a considerable reduction

of unemployment.38 Next comes the demographical factor. Nazism was

perceived as a young, dynamic movement, and it certainly was so in

comparison with the parties that dominated the political scene during the

Weimar Republic. In 1930, over one third of its members and over one

quarter of its leaders were thirty years old or less.39

36 Henry Kissinger, op. cit., pp. 231-250. 37 Christian conte von Krockow, op. cit., p. 208. 38 Ibidem. 39 Ibidem, p. 212.

Emanuel Copilaş

36

The third factor consists in the political-ideological appeal of the

movement. The firmness of Hitler’s declarations and the uncompromising

image of the Party convinced the political elite that it represented the only

authentic opposition against the growing forces of communism and

manipulated the German militarized society by creating the impression of a

much more capable political leadership in comparison with the former

democratic regime. But probably the most important factor, closely related

to the third one, consists in the ability of the regime to create a double

conscience for the citizen: by making him feel like a hero, he was gradually

enslaved and submissively accepted the xenophobic and racist nature of

the new leadership. The Prussian legacy, with its cult for the army and the

strong state, was instrumented and distorted by the Nazis in order to give

rise to an obedient and enthusiastic society. Although Bismarck’s personal

and political qualities exceeded by far Hitler’s fanaticism, his shallow

rhetoric and lack of geopolitical sense, the fact that the Nazi ideology found

a fertile ground in the social and cultural legacy of Prussianism is

undeniable. Therefore

‘between 1933 and 1945, the ‚typically ideal‛ German lives a double life,

he has a double personality; exactly those people who rest as respectful

citizens in their normal apolitical existence are in the same time those who

put on the uniform and march intoxicated by the will of power and

enslaved by it, subjects which rise to power and people of power as

subjects. The power of attraction consists in that the regime serves both

the need of quiet, order and bourgeois safety, but also the conscience of

master and hero.’40

The conclusion is that Nazism was not at all an isolated ideology

and political leadership; it had strong social echoes and benefited from

popular support. The unprecedented symbols that it used offered the

movement a specific character and helped explain the success of its

‘ideological mobilization’. The Nazis struggled to build up ‘an ideological

and fight community, way above a political union of interests.’ For Norbert

Frei, the massive use of symbols and the disrespect of politics as a peaceful

and legally circumscribed confrontation between different ideas and

interests – understood as harmful, corrupt and disorganized – prove the

40 Ibidem, p. 220.

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37

paradoxical theocratic features of this political regime structured by

modern technique and total mobilization.41 Sadly, the German society

possessed, with minor exceptions, the same understanding of democracy,

referring to it as weak, chaotic and dysfunctional. Ralf Dahrendorf

identifies another, perhaps more important paradox of national-socialism.

He argued that the regime ‘carried out the revolution of modernity for

Germany. It did it in a paradoxical contrast of its traditionalist ideology of

‚blood and soil‛, actually uprooting people and destroying the inherited

institutional structures’.42 In this regard, Nazism accomplished, by using a

traditional discourse and by speculating the Prussian symbols (the army

and the state), the social adherence and the prestige they were credited

with – a radical change. It created, another paradox (!), a certain form of

modern citizenship by pouring the foundation of a middle class with a

schizoid conscience, divided, as quoted above, between a rarely

understood enslaved dimension and a heroic dimension the official

propaganda strived to exacerbate. After 1945, this middle class could be

‘recycled’ for democratic and civilian uses, and soon became the backbone

of the new German identity<43

One should not forget, however, that Nazism was not a

hypertrophied form of nationalism, although it presented itself in this way

and massively exploited national symbols, attitudes and expectations. Its

essence was of imperial nature, and Pan Germanism, or ‘continental

imperialism’ to use Hannah Arendt’s expression, was the closest political

phenomenon it was related to. Of course, Nazi propaganda insisted on the

superiority of the so called ‘German race’ in order to attract popular

support, but the racial aim of the regime was quite different. The Germans

themselves were not believed to be part of a ‘master race’. The authentic

‘master race’ the Nazis wished for would have ruled Germans along with

all existing nations. This race did not appeared yet, but it was about to be

created during several centuries from SS members, which were not all of

German origins. It is known that Nazis used to kidnap children from the

occupied countries which resembled their racial ideals, and also form

41 Norbert Frei, Statul Führerului. Regimul național-socialist, 1933-1945, București: Corint, 2007,

p. 118. 42 Ralf Dahrendorf, După 1989. Morală, revoluție și societate civilă, București: Humanitas, 2001,

p. 189. 43 See also Christian conte von Krockow, op. cit., p. 280.

Emanuel Copilaş

38

different SS units using members from members of the occupied

populations. Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS, tried to convince the

latter to ‚subordinate *their+ national ideal to the greater racial and

historical ideal which is that of the German Reich.‛44

Anti-Semitism in general and even its Nazi orchestration in

particular is a far too complex subject for the dimensions and objective of

the present study. Still, to understand, as much as possible, how and why

the Germans embraced it so profoundly, we must once again turn our

attention to the work of Hannah Arendt.

The roots of European Anti-Semitism are undoubtedly deep, but

they are more powerful anchored in the 19th century than in every other

century of the Modern Era, or even the Middle Ages. Starting with the

Renaissance, but especially in the age of Absolutism, Jews played a key role

in the European diplomacy and financial affairs. Due to religious motives,

they were, in the past, gradually expelled from certain professions, but not

from commerce or financial affairs, which they came to master. However,

after the French Revolution and the national redefinition of post-

Napoleonic Europe, Jews, (the rich, ‘Court Jews’, not the poor majority of

them, not to mention the intellectuals) gradually lost their diplomatic

position, although not as fast as that of financial advisers around European

governments. They were still wealthy, but were not perceived as strong

anymore, due to their estrangement from the political sphere, and this

amplified social hostility towards them. In fact, Jews were never as strong

as the collective mentalities perceived them: because of an understandable

attitude that can be traced back to Antiquity, members of the Jewish

communities always sought political protection against popular

aggressions they were often subjected to. They were serving the states by

taking care of their financial activities, not dominating them. However, for

the public opinion, their image was closely related to that of states

themselves.

When national states made their entrance in the European history,

Jews and their allogeneous character became more obvious than ever.

Moreover, as the economic crises from the second half of the 19th century

were emerging as rapid industrialization was taking shape, large social

layers from all over the continent were affected by them. They blamed, as

44 Hannah Arendt, op. cit., p. 535.

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39

far as their political culture allowed them, they’re own governments and

one of the most prominent image of the state was, as we have seen, that of

the Jew who perfidiously dominated it at the expense of the people.45

Therefore, starting with the last years of the First World War, and during

most of the interwar era, when Germany was economically and socially

ruined, a process which culminated with the 1929-1933 crisis - the German

hostility towards the monarchy and, afterwards, the Weimar Republic, was

at its highest. And because the Jews ‘behind’ the state were thought to be

responsible for its emasculation, it is not hard to understand the easiness

trough which Hitler and his Nazi Party won a considerable part of their

electorate by manipulating Anti-Semite symbols, and made Anti-Semitism

one of the key components of their social policy.

During the 1930’s, the Third Reich launched a massive campaign of

rearmament, simultaneously with an aggressive policy of territorial claims.

It annexed Austria in 1938 (the Anschluss) and large parts of

Czechoslovakia inhabited by ethnic Germans. Czechoslovakia disappeared

as a political entity. Instead, the Bohemia-Moravia protectorate was

created, under the total control of Nazi Germany. France and Great Britain

temporarily accepted these actions, subsuming them to the supreme

objective of maintaining peace.46 But Hitler also aimed to incorporate into

his Reich parts of France, Denmark, Poland and Italy which were too

inhabited by ethnic Germans.47 Although Nazi rhetoric was extremely anti-

Soviet, the two dictatorships signed a peace treaty in 1939, just a few weeks

before the beginning of Second World War.

Hitler was influenced to a great extent by the Italian fascist regime

of Benito Mussolini (although fascism was more an authoritarian then a

totalitarian political regime: it never aimed to achieve complete

administrative or ideological control over its population) and also by

Stalin’s Soviet Union. Therefore, Nazism was not an ‘exotic’ regime on the

European political scene, but a radical expression of an international

ideological trend (fascism), which reached its zenith during the interwar

period, and which represented, in the words of Mussolini, a ‘socialist

45 Ibidem, pp. 15-168. 46 Geoff Layton, Germania: al Treilea Reich, 1933-1945, București: All, 2001, pp. 121-131; A.J.P.

Taylor, Originile celui de-al doilea război mondial, Iași: Polirom, 1999, pp. 109-191. 47 Claude David, Hitler și nazismul, București: Corint, 2004, p. 43.

Emanuel Copilaş

40

heresy’.48 The common ideological root of right-wing and left-wing political

extremes was recognized even by the founder of fascism; their catastrophic

effects (understood sooner or later) were also impossible to set apart.

Divided Germany, the epicenter of the Cold War

In 1939, Germany challenged the world once again and once again

was defeated. But this time, the vanquished had to face way more harsher

conditions than they did back in 1918. Germany was occupied and divided

into four parts, each under direct rule of one of the Allies: the United States,

Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union. Its capital, Berlin, was also

partitioned, even if it was in the middle of the Soviet controlled territory.

Germany ceased to exist as a political entity until the western powers

united their three regions, four years after the end of the Second World

War, and created the Federal Republic of Germany. In response, Stalin

transformed his share of the former Third Reich into the Democratic

Republic of Germany.

The ‘German Problem’ represented the core of the future ideological

confrontation between the former Allies.49 Except France, the other powers

were against the dismemberment of their former enemy out of concern for

the feelings of the German people. The lesson of Versailles, namely the

danger of marginalizing and humiliating the former enemy, urged the

western powers to help rebuild Germany and integrate it in their economic

and security perimeters.

However, the split of the Third Reich’s territory between the Allies

was not a planned action. It occurred spontaneously, as the Cold War was

beginning to emerge.50 This outcome had very much to do with the

indecision of the Roosevelt Administration regarding the future of postwar

Germany. Initially, the Morgenthau plan was take into account. It foresaw

a complete neutralization of Germany’s industrial power, followed by its

48 Joshua Muravchik, Raiul pe pământ. Mărirea și decăderea socialismului, Timișoara: Brumar,

2004, p. 161. 49 Peter Calvocoressi, Politica mondială după 1945, București: Allfa, 2000, p. 3; Eugen Preda,

NATO. Scurtă istorie, București: Silex, 1999, p. 59. 50 Peter Alter, op. cit., p. 184. See also Alfred Grosser, Occidentalii. Țările Europei și Statele

Unite după război, București: DU Style, 1999, pp. 74-81.

The ‘German Problem’ Then and Now: from the Threat of <

41

division into several traditional Lands were the main economic activity

was to be agriculture. Although Roosevelt initially supported the project of

his Finance minister, he eventually opted for ‘a peace of integration in the

future state communities.’51 But the plan was a palpable proof of the hatred

and animosity Nazi Germany draw upon itself, even from its democratic

opponents.

‘Morgenthau’s plan for the ‚pastoralization‛ of Germany is

understandable as a reflection of irrational wartime hatred for a cruel and

stubborn enemy. Nor is it surprising that many government officials, not

wanting to appear ‚soft‛ on Germany, at first supported the plan. Upon

reflection, however, the impractical and inhumane aspects of the proposal

quickly became clear, causing support for it within the Roosevelt

Administration to crumble even before unwanted publicity brought out

the President’s disavowal.’52

For the rest of the Allies, especially for the Soviets, the American

indecision regarding Germany entailed suspicions which will, combined

with other factors, ‘destabilize’ their partnership.53

The proposal of the State Secretary George Marshall, centered on

the need of economic and infrastructural reconstruction of the European

countries, replaced the Morgenthau plan in 1947. Albeit it was offered to

the USSR and its postwar allies as well, Stalin rejected it as an American

subversive measure aiming to neutralize the Soviet postwar influence upon

Eastern Europe.

In the Western regions of the former Reich, a monetary reform was

implemented as a part of the Marshall plan starting with 1948. The reform

was intended to stabilize the enormous inflation, willingly maintained and

even amplified by the Soviets in order to achieve a better control over their

part of Germany and to destabilize the parts occupied by the French, the

British and the Americans. When the new Deutsche Mark was introduced

into the western sectors, Stalin established in what was to become the

Democratic Republic of Germany a Soviet controlled currency, the Eastern

51 Wilfried Loth, Împărțirea lumii. Istoria Războiului Rece, 1941-1955, București: SAECULUM I.

O., 1997, p. 23. 52 John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947, New York:

Columbia University Press, 1972, p. 121. 53 Wilfried Loth, op. cit., pp. 21-23.

Emanuel Copilaş

42

Mark (Ostmark). But when the reform was extended to West Berlin,

Moscow had a prompt and radical reaction: taking advantage of West

Berlin’s which an enclave within the Soviet occupied zone is, it simply

blocked the access of his former allies into the city. The blockade of Berlin

was now in full effect.

Among the reasons which provoked such a harsh response from the

Soviets, one was ‘the humiliating and impossible to control’ situation

where their currency is neglected by the Berliners which preferred the

stronger and trustful western currency.54 Another one was Stalin’s extreme

discontent of the ‘American capitalism’ and its influence over Germany, ‘as

well as the establishment of a military American-European alliance’, which

was becoming more and more visible.55

President Truman offered a simple and ingenious approach to the

issue. Profiting by the fact that air access to the city was not included in the

regulations between the former Allies regarding the traffic in Berlin, he

organized a massive air campaign, providing West Berliners with the food,

medicine and fuel they needed in order to survive the blockade. Although

a military answer was taken into consideration at first, the Americans

opted eventually for this peaceful and simpler solution. After 324 days,

thousands of flights and millions of tons of provisions, Stalin renounced by

ending the blockade and renormalizing the traffic towards and from the

‘imperialist’ part of Berlin. This event represented the first serious clash

between the former Allies. Moreover, it led to the creation of the military

blocks (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization by the western powers and

the Warsaw Pact by the Soviet Union and its allies) and it accelerated the

division of Germany. In 1949, the Iron Curtain was passing through the

middle of the former Reich, as the Federal and the Democratic Republic of

Germany stood now at the heart of the Cold War.56

54 Bernard Brigouleix, op. cit., p. 115. 55 Wilfried Loth, op. cit., p. 197. 56 Eugen Preda, op. cit., pp-53-64; Martin McCauley, Rusia, America și Războiul Rece, 1949-

1991, Iași: Polirom, 1999, pp. 47-49; Tony Judt, Epoca postbelică. O istorie a Europei de după

1945, Iași: Polirom, 2008, p. 145; Frederick F. Hartmann, The relations of nations, New York:

MacMillan, 1978, pp. 495-498; Jiři Fidler; Petr Mareś, Istoria NATO, Iași: Institutul European,

2005, pp. 40-41; Jean Baptiste Duroselle; André Kaspi, Istoria relațiilor internaționale, 1948-

pînâ în zilele noastre (vol. II), București: Editura Știinţelor Sociale și Politice, 2006, pp. 11-17;

André Fontain, Istoria Războiului Rece. De la Revoluția din Octombrie la Războiul din Coreea,

1917-1950 (vol. II), București: Editura Militară, 1992, pp. 141-157.

The ‘German Problem’ Then and Now: from the Threat of <

43

But the disagreements between the superpowers over Berlin and the

‘German Problem’ in general were far from being over. In 1952, one year

after its death, Stalin advanced the proposal of a reunified, neutral

Germany, the first Soviet answer to the postwar ‘German Problem’. But he

was turned down by the FRG’s Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who chose to

maintain his country’s close relationships to the West instead of a doubtful

reunification which was very likely intended to drag West Germany into

the Soviet sphere of influence. A few years after this event and quickened

by the Korean War, the Federal Republic became, despite some powerful

protests, a member of the Western security structure, the North Atlantic

Alliance.57 Equally important, its sovereignty was also recognized by the

democratic powers, which means that the FRG begun its de facto existence

only from 1955, when she was finally admitted into NATO.58

This outcome troubled Moscow to a great extent. A decade after the

end of the Berlin blockade, Stalin’s successor decided that USSR was strong

enough to force the United States to put an end to the ‘German Problem’ in

Soviet terms. But there was another reason, of geopolitical nature, which

drove the Soviets to act: the Soviet Union was almost surrounded now by

American military basis, and the superpower talks about disarmament had

reached a dead end.59 Nevertheless, the migration of intellectuals, students

and workers from East Germany and East Berlin to West Berlin reached

alarming proportions both for Moscow and especially for German

communists, which saw their five-year plan compromised - and needed to

be interrupted using the less humiliating way possible.60

In a gesture of defiance, ‘Khrushchev (<) declared the agreement of

the four powers over Berlin null and void and insisted that West Berlin to

be transformed in a demilitarized, ‚free city.‛’61 With other words, he

demanded the ‘imperialists’ to retreat from their part of the city and

recognize the sovereignty of Eastern Germany. Speculating the fact that a

peace treaty with Germany has not been signed since the end of Second

57 Jiři Fidler; Petr Mareś, op. cit., pp. 74-84. 58 Josef Joffe, ‘The Foreign Policy of the Federal Republic of Germany’, in Roy Macridis (ed.),

Foreign Policy in World Politics: States and Regions, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall International,

1989, p. 76. 59 William Taubman, Khrushchev. The man, his era, London: Free Press, 2005, p. 403. 60 Bernard Brigouleix, op. cit., pp. 132-153. 61 Henry Kissinger, op. cit., p. 497.

Emanuel Copilaş

44

World War, he tried to convince Washington to ‘sign a peace treaty with

West Germany, while the USSR did so with both Germanys.’62 This

outcome would have made the presence of American troops in the West

Berlin useless and also silenced ‘a very irritating source of Western

propaganda, especially after the progress made by television, in the hearth

of a ‚socialist‛ country.’63

Despite the fact that Khrushchev’s pressures affected to some extent

the North Atlantic Alliance, they did not achieve their objective. West

Berlin remained the ‘cancerous tumor’, as Stalin’s successor used to refer to

it, of the socialist camp. To contain it, Khrushchev and Walter Ulbricht, the

East German Communist leader, started constructing in 1961 the infamous

Berlin Wall, a symbol of communism’s failure rather than success, as

Khrushchev referred to it when he stopped two years latter what is now

called the Berlin crisis.64

Only in 1971 reached the former World War Two Allies an effective

agreement over Berlin. Reaffirming the responsibilities, but also the rights

they have regarding the future of the city and of the ‘German Problem’ in

general, the Quadripartite Agreement loosened traffic from the East to the

West side and also improved the infrastructure of the city. Both German

states were also recognized as sovereign and independent, they recognized

each other’s sovereignty (Grundlagenvertrag) and were integrated into

United Nations in 1973. It appeared that the ‘German Problem’ was finally

solved, but the fall of the Berlin Wall in the autumn of 1989 witnessed its

unexpected and disquieting reoccurrence.

Renouncing the Prussian legacy: the Federal Republic of

Germany or the appearance of a ‘civilian power’

The political and geopolitical metamorphosis of the postwar world

offers only a partial image of the metamorphosis the ‘German Problem’

experienced during the transition from the 19th to the 20th century. To

62 William Taubman, op. cit., p. 435. 63 Bernard Brigouleix, op. cit., p. 141. 64 Henry Kissinger, op. cit., p. 515.

The ‘German Problem’ Then and Now: from the Threat of <

45

complete it, the radical changes of the German psychology and national

identity must be taken into account.

The issue of the so called Denazification is highly important in this

regard. The process certainly took place, but not trough the Nurnberg trial

and the Denazification comities, but trough a gradual change of mentalities

and generations. ‘Skepticism as a survival experience’ and a new ‘youth

culture, which was impregnated by the orientation towards the West, by

the American fascination [as a prosperous, free country+’ replaced in a

short period of time the Prussian army and state cult, and the change was

not at all superficial.65

‘The traditional Prussian-conservative power elites lost their

material basis and influence. The gravity center of politics moved from

East to West. For the first time, in a very long time, Catholic Germany

obtained a position of leadership. The power of the army crumbled;

although from the rearming the federal army could develop technically

way much more than the Reich’s army did during the Weimar Republic, it

never became a state again. Even the prestige of the uniform, so

characteristic in the old days, has gone; it is dressed only at the working

place and nowhere in the rest. The Germans became convinced civilians.’66

The German economic ‘miracle’ stood at the foundation of this new

identity. Experiencing the goodwill and consistent American help,

Germans felt encouraged to confront the difficult task of rebuilding their

country. Furthermore, the massive exodus of qualified working-hand from

Soviet occupied zone contributed substantially to the process.67 But, one the

other hand, one should not forget that this economic miracle was made

possible by former Nazi specialists; their presence in postwar German

economy and administration was very much disregarded by the winners of

Second World War, but everyone knew that their absence would have

proven to be disastrous for the efforts of rebuilding the country.

Pragmatism replaced moral considerations. Even Konrad Adenauer,

chancellor between 1949 and 1963 and the most important figure in

German postwar politics – condemned in 1946 what he considered to be

the exaggerated zeal of the winners regarding Denazification. He believed

65 Christian conte von Krockow, op. cit., p. 287. 66 Ibidem, pp. 301-302. 67 Ibidem, pp. 291-292.

Emanuel Copilaş

46

that the process would eventually lead to a revival of nationalism, not to

guilt, shame and obedience. This is how strong Nazism was embedded

within the German minds.68

Of course, this ‘Return of the citizen corresponded logically to the

return in Europe.’69 The Sonderweg was left behind as France and Germany

agreed to a common use of the resources of the Ruhr region, thus putting

the bases of the future European Community. As Peter Calvocoressi writes,

‘The European Community or Union was conceived as an

antidote for the German power, which’s presence in the centre of Europe,

represented a permanent threat for peace and stability. A Community or

Union like this was to include Germany, to create a favorable field for the

German ambitions to the benefit of Europe, not against it and, also, to

maximally increase the importance of common economic actions of its

members and even to create an economic power able to match the United

States or Japan. When these ideas were adopted both by France and by

Germany, they became political reality.’70

Indeed, the major postwar gain of both West Germany’s neighbors

and West Germany itself was the ‘exorcisation of its militaristic spirit’71 and

its sincere availability to bind its future to that of Europe, to integrate its

identity in its originary European matrix and to build a climate of trust and

cooperation with its former enemies within a common cultural,

economical, social and eventually political framework.

Konrad Adenauer was the first Chancellor of the FRG. A

conservative catholic, highly religious (a founding member of the Christian

Democratic Union of Germany, one of the strongest postwar German

political party) he was ‘one of the few anti-Nazis which survived inside

Germany’, and also ‘the most politically prominent.’72 Possessing an

68 Tony Judt, op. cit., p. 65. 69 Christian conte von Krockow, op. cit., p. 303. 70 Peter Calvocoressi, Rupeți rândurile! Al doilea război mondial și configurarea Europei postbelice,

Iași: Polirom, 2000, p. 165. 71 Peter Calvocoressi, Europa de la Bismarck la Gorbaciov, Iași: Polirom, 2003, p. 150. 72 Ghiţă Ionescu, Oameni de stat într-o lume interdependentă. Adenauer, de Gaulle, Tatcher,

Reagan și Gorbaciov, București: Bic All, 1998, p. 41. For a personal profile of ‘der Alte’ (the

‘old man’, as the Germans affectionately nicknamed him), see Richard Nixon, Lideri,

București: Universal Dalsi, 2000, pp. 172-214.

The ‘German Problem’ Then and Now: from the Threat of <

47

‘instinctive antipathy’73 towards Prussia, he struggled and succeeded in

creating a ‘civilian community’ out of the FRG. Constitutionally, Adenauer

started by ‘retracting the supremacy of the state or of the community over

the individual, together with its duty to sacrifice itself, which determined,

for so long, fatally, the ideologies of Germanity; liberty, equality and with

them, the responsibility of the individual became central.’74

In the field of international relations, Adenauer guided his country’s

policy in three major directions. He begun by ‘reassuring’ France ‘that there

would be no resurgence of the ‚German peril.‛’ Next, he tried to reach an

honorable compromise between the ‘constraints’ imposed by the Allies and

the ‘German aspirations for sovereignty.’ As a consequence, his ‘entire

diplomacy was devoted to transmuting the constraints imposed

unilaterally by the victors into mutual controls shared voluntarily by all.’

Finally, he figured that both of the objectives were achievable only trough a

substantial ‘political and economic integration that would supersede the

ancient logic of power politics by the new logic of community and mutual

gain.’75

Committed to the goal of morally, politically and economically

reconstructing his country, Adenauer obstinately refused the Soviet

proposal of reuniting Germany during the blockade and, respectively, the

crisis of Berlin, referring to it as an ‘unrealistic goal.’76 Although the refusal

affected his popularity, he understood that Germany’s future and eventual

reunification were guaranteed only by the firm ties with the western

communities.77

The most famous successor of Chancellor Adenauer was Willy

Brandt. His major geopolitical initiative, the Ostpolitik, did not at all

renounce the structural relationships of his country with the West; it was a

result of security needs in the nuclear era, as the Europeans started to fear a

73 Ibidem, p. 48. 74 Christian conte von Krockow, op. cit., pp. 302-303. 75 Josef Joffe, ‘The Foreign Policy of the Federal Republic of Germany’, in Roy Macridis (ed.),

op. cit., p. 78. See also Neil Nugent, The Government and Politics of the European Union, New

York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006, p. 24. 76 Ibidem, p. 81. 77 Stephen Szabo, ‘The New Germany and Central European Security’, in John Lampe;

Daniel Nelson, East European Security Reconsidered, Washington: The Woodrow Wilson

Central Press, 1993, p. 36.

Emanuel Copilaş

48

catastrophic war between the superpowers that would be fought on their

continent. When the détente period appeared at the beginning of the 1970’s,

due to its geographic position, Germany needed a safe and promising

geopolitical environment, not the rigid isolation into the ‘Western camp’.78

But most importantly, it aimed to overcome the painful division of the

German nation trough Sisyphus’s example: by recognizing, accepting and

eventually overcoming it.79 But Ostpolitik was aware of the fact that

‘reunification was not an operative goal of West German foreign policy in

the short or medium turn.’ Furthermore, no attempts of destabilizing

Eastern Germany were conducted. The political reunification was

indefinitely postponed by the social, cultural and economical unification,

an activity so determined that it eventually softened the GDR leadership’s

circumspection towards it.80 In order to eliminate any possible doubt about

its intentions, Willy Brandt renounced the Hallstein doctrine, which stated

that the FRG would not engage in diplomatic activities with states that

recognize the DRG as a legitimate political entity.

During the Chancellor Helmut Schmidt’s leadership (1974-1979), the

‚margin‛ of the country’s ‚diplomatic maneuver (<) has been

extraordinarily enlarged.‛81 The Helsinki agreements signed in 1975

announced a relaxation of the international scene, one which Bonn was

determined to fructify.82 But when USSR abruptly invaded Afghanistan in

1979 and started to deploy SS-20 nuclear missiles in Eastern Europe, the

détente period was over. NATO responded by in a similar manner, by

adopting a policy of ‘neo-containment’. Western Germany was highly

vulnerable in this situation, because it risked becoming a ‚shooting gallery

of the superpowers‛.83 For the first time after 1945, powerful anti-American

feelings were beginning to emerge among ordinary Germans. The Bonn

leadership was disquieted as well by the American response to the rising

78 Renata Frisch Bournazel, „Germania și apărarea Europei‛, în Raoul Girardet (ed.),

Apărarea Europei, Iași: Institutul European, 2005, p. 108. 79 John Ieuan, ‘The Re-emergence of ‚the German Question‛: a United Germany and

European Security and Stability’, in David Armstrong; Erik Goldstein, op. cit., p. 132. 80 Ibidem, p. 133. 81 Josef Joffe, ‘The Foreign Policy of the Federal Republic of Germany’, in Roy Macridis (ed.),

op. cit., p. 104. 82 Ibidem, p. 106. 83 Ibidem, p. 108.

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49

international tensions. Schmidt tried to ‘moderate’ the new dissonance

between the superpowers, but with little success: ‘the Federal Republic was

not the Bismarck Empire. While an economic giant, the FRG was a political

dwarf when it came to playing in the arena dominated by the super-

powers.‛ As a consequence, ‘Moscow refused to negotiate while continuing

to add to its SS-20 arsenal.’84

During the 1980’s, due to the geopolitical contraction that

characterized the final phase of the Cold War, the reunification became a

more and more distant objective. Only after Gorbachev took the leadership

of the Soviet Union visible signs of improvement begun to emerge. Yet,

until the fall of the Berlin Wall, the reunification achieved by Chancellor

Helmut Kohl remained an almost utopian goal.

Returning to German identity during the development of the Cold

War, which can be referred to as the most important variable of the

postwar ‚German Problem’ (albeit its ‘absen*ce+ from the diplomatic

vocabulary’85 of the Federal’s Republic), Lisbeh Aggestam argues that it

was structured along four principal parameters. The first one resides in the

‘opposition to the Third Reich’. Nazism and his legacy of hatred and

destruction were forever excluded from the picture. Next, the FRG strongly

affirmed and assumed its European cultural, economical and geopolitical

identity. Furthermore, domestic factors like the liberal constitution, the

national currency and, nevertheless, ‘the social market economy’ led to the

appearance of what the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas called

‘constitutional patriotism’. He argued that national identities have entered

a phase of evanescence and a new, comprehensive post-national identity

begun its existence. The multicultural communities which started to replace

national states can prosper only if they are assumed and sustained trough

this procedural manner the ‘constitutional patriotism’ refers to. Without the

emotional or historical weight the national patriotism contains,

‘constitutional patriotism’ can ensure a common denominator for the

multitude of interests, ideas or values existent in a community without

depriving it of its philosophical fundament or its conscience.86 Finally, the

84 Ibidem, p. 110. 85 Lisbeth Aggestam, ‘Germany’, in Ian Manners; Richard Whitman, The Foreign Policies of

European Union Member States, Manchester University Press, 2000, p. 66. 86 Jürgen Habermas, ‘The Constitutional State’, in William Outhawaite (ed.), The Habermas

Reader, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000, pp. 214-216; Andrei Marga, Filosofia lui Habermas, Iași:

Emanuel Copilaş

50

last parameter which contributed to the German postwar identity

represents the ‘reconciliation with former enemies and [the] rejection of

military power projection for other purposes than territorial defense trough

NATO’.87 This whole process was not, as some authors have referred to it, a

‘self-fulfilling amnesia’88, but something way much more: a real and radical

identitary metamorphosis.

Although engaged in a powerful ideological competition, the two

Germanys were extremely different in terms of economical, social and

cultural prosperity. Therefore, to conclude that the ‘main’ Germany was

the Federal Republic is not at all exaggerated. After all, the reunited

Germany continues the legacy of the Federal, not of the Democratic

Republic. But, on the other hand, the GDR was one of the ‘strongest and

richest members’ of its alliance, too. In Josef Joffe’s words, the two ‘twin’

states were ‘both the greatest profiteers and the greatest victims of the

postwar system.’89

In search of a nation: the German Democratic Republic

In all of its short and unsecured existence, East Germany was

confronted with two major intertwined issues. The first and the most

important was that of identity. Along its forty years of permanent and

ideocratic dictatorship, the SED (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands -

the Socialist Unity Party of Germany) had never managed to create a

distinct East German national identity, separated of and superior to that of

the Federal’s Republic. Because this lack of national identity, it was the

Polirom, 2006, pp. 484-485; Olivier Nay, Istoria Ideilor Politice, Iași: Polirom, 2008, pp. 592-

594. I tried to offer a presentation and critical approach of some of Habermas’s concepts in

political philosophy in Emanuel Copilaş, ‘Dincolo de teoria critică. O posibilă inserare a

filosofiei politice habermasiene în teoria relaţiilor internaţionale’, in Sfera Politicii, nr. 138,

2009, pp. 96-113. 87 Lisbeth Aggestam, ‘Germany’, in Ian Manners; Richard Whitman, op. cit., p. 66. 88 Uwe Nerlich, ‘Washington and Bonn: Evolutionary patterns in the relations between the

United States and the Federal Republic of Germany’, in Karl Kaiser, Hans-Peter Schwarz,

America and Western Europe. Problems and Prospects, Massachusetts: D.C. Heath and

Company Lexington, 1979, p. 369. 89 Josef Joffe, ‘The Foreign Policy of the Federal Republic of Germany’, in Roy Macridis (ed.),

op. cit., p. 117.

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51

most vulnerable Soviet satellite. Artificially and forcefully created by Stalin,

its existence was justified only as a product of superpower rivalry. It was

conditioned and owed its existence to the circumstances that made the

Cold War possible. Its communist leadership, the only category who truly

benefited from this state of events, was never found of destalinization,

détente, perestroika or glasnost, because these eroded the precarious

legitimacy of the GDR, the second major challenge which contested its

reason to exist.

The first leader of East Germany, Walter Ulbricht, was very much

aware of these difficulties. But he and his Stalinist acolytes believed that

they can be eventually overcame trough the power of ideology alone.

However, they forgot the fact that communism represented an ideal only

for them, without being shared by the rest of the population; its moral force

was therefore highly overrated and, after the economical, social and

cultural effects of ‘real socialism’ became painfully evident, totally

discredited.

‘The initial hopes of the founders of the GDR, not to mention

their Soviet protectors, had been that ideology alone would provide the

main legitimizing factor for the new state – the ideal of, quest for, the first

German socialist state. Walter Ulbricht, though in other respects a

pragmatic politician, always retained this ideal, and despite all the rebuffs

of subsequent experience, many older East German communists, schooled

in the struggles for communism and against Nazism, also clung to the

belief that socialism meant legitimacy.’90

As a corollary of the lack of adhesion towards communism, East

Berlin authorities faced in June 1953, a few months after Stalin’s death, a

massive and spontaneous workers strike, brutally repressed by Soviet

intervention, and which seriously affected the existence of the new state.91

17 June became a national holiday for West Germans, a reminder of the

sufferings of their Eastern brethren and a symbol of a, albeit divided,

common identity.

90 J.F. Brown, Surge to Freedom. The End of Communist Rule in Eastern Europe, Durham: Duke

University Press, 1991, p. 133. 91 Patrick Brogan, Eastern Europe, 1939-1959. The fifty years war, London: Bloomsbury

Publishing Limited, 1990, pp. 27-30.

Emanuel Copilaş

52

Walter Ulbricht was replaced in 1971 by Erich Honecker. Soviet

General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev coordinated the entire action. He took

the decision to remove Ulbricht due to the opposition of the German leader

(for motives mentioned above) towards détente. His successor came to

terms with the Soviet Union’s new approach towards the West and the

need to ‘normalize’ his country’s relations with the FRG by accepting Willy

Brandt’s Ostpolitik. However, being aware of the risks this strategy could

entail by diminishing the GDR’s reasons to exist, he responded by

advancing the Abgrenzung (demarcation) policy. It was intended as a firm

message for West Germany, stating that, although the economical and

cultural ties between the two parts were rapidly developing, there could be

no ideological compromise with the capitalist and imperialist forces which

enslaved the FRG. East Germany would perseveringly continue its path to

socialism and thus affirm it’s much needed separate identity. 92

As mentioned, the Party permanently struggled to forge an East

German national identity, separated from that of the Federal’s Republic. It

failed, not only for internal reasons like the planned economy the lack of

adherence of the communist ideal, but also because West Germans strived

trough Ostpolitik to do just the opposite. The GDR was, in J.F. Bown’s

terms, ‘a penetrated society’. The West’s prosperity and freedom had

continuously undermined the communist project of constructing an

independent and strong East Germany. West Germany did everything in

its power to destroy the communist regime behind the Berlin Wall using its

main advantage, soft power. The Deutsche Mark (a symbol of social

superiority and the usual bribe used to obtain better services or goods), the

‘West German travelers’ (with some exceptions, ‘the best advertisement for

the Western way of life’) and the ‘West German television’ (available for

80% of East Germans after 1970 and 100% starting with the 1980’s)

represented the ‘instruments’ trough which the Federal Republic was

trying to peacefully bring down the Wall.93

Despite these major disadvantages Erich Honecker and the SED had

to confront with while trying to obtain legitimacy trough forging a national

East German identity, they considered to be up to the task. In this sense, a

major provocation appeared during the 1970’s, when communist regimes

92 J.F. Brown, op. cit., p. 129. 93 Ibidem, pp. 135-138.

The ‘German Problem’ Then and Now: from the Threat of <

53

all around Eastern Europe, confronted with the lack of the promised

achievements and with the erosion of the few legitimacy they possessed,

started to resort to what they ferociously combated in the past, nationalism.

Aware of the dilemma, Honecker strived to overcome it with the help of

several factors. One of them was the ‘strong historical tradition of

regionalism in German history’. Next, due to the fact that a certain ‘sense of

East German ‚distinctiveness‛’ had emerged since the end of the end of the

Second World War, he hoped that it could constitute the basis of the future

identity. The amazing and ‘meticulously prepared’ performances of East

German athletes were also believed to contribute to the task. The final and

most important factor was the massive ‚rehabilitation campaign‛ the Party

launched, ‘searching into German history for figures to fit into the mold of

a progressive German nationalist outlook’ after they were publicly rejected

‘as the epitome of reaction’. Therefore, Frederick the Great, Otto von

Bismarck and, to some extent, Richard Wagner were recuperated and

ideologically purified to serve the capital task that the Party assumed, that

of creating the East German national identity. But failing it, East Germany

remained the most fragile postwar construction, paradoxically dependent

on both the Soviet Union and the FRG as well94 and, above all, on the Cold

War itself. Even if it achieved, after the Wall was build, a notable economic

development with reference to the other communist states (except the

Soviet Union), taking into account its post 1945 economic and

infrastructural condition and the millions of citizens it lost as they migrated

to West Germany95 - when Gorbachev started the process that will

eventually lead to the end of the superpower confrontation, its fate was

sealed.

Reunited Germany, the central component of the European

project

When Michael Gorbachev’s ‘new thinking’ significantly influenced

the relations between USSR, Eastern Europe and the ‘capitalist world’ and,

as a result, the Cold war was entering its final phase, East Germany

94 Ibidem, pp. 133-135. 95 Ibidem, p. 128.

Emanuel Copilaş

54

resorted once again to the Abgrenzung policy. But this time it searched to

isolate itself not from the corruptive effects of West German’s capitalism,

but from the new international program of its protector, the Soviet Union.96

As paradoxical as it seems, the ‘new thinking’ contributed to the

melioration of the relations between the two German states while

simultaneously deteriorating the ties between orthodox Stalinist countries

like the GDR or Romania with what Kenneth Jowitt referred to as the

‘Moscow centre’.97

When in September 1989 Hungary, one of the most liberal socialist

regimes, ‘declared its borders open’, tens of thousand of East German

citizens used the Hungarian breach to get to Austria and then to West

Germany. Many more appealed the Hungarian and West German

embassies from Warsaw and Prague asking for ‘exit visas.’98 Confronted

also with major demonstrations, Honecker resigned the next month and

was replaced by Egon Krenz. But by now, the situation was already beyond

the control of the Party and its efforts to prevent the further dissolution of

the regime were useless.99 In the first days of November, the

demonstrations reached East Berlin and on the night between 9 and 10 of

the month, the Berlin Wall was officially opened by East German

authorities.100 Reunification was now just a matter of time.

Until it finally occurred, one year later, it was conducted through

the ‘2 + 4’ formula. That meant that the two German states agreed first on

the conditions the reunification implied, and than presented the result to

the four winners of the Second World War. In this way the process was

fastened and the renewed Germany proved that it was no longer an object

of negotiation between the four powers,101 but, despite its enormous

historical burden, a powerful, European country able to assume it past, its

present and the construction of its future within the European common

96 Ibidem, pp. 140-144. 97 Kenneth Jowitt, New World Disorder. The Leninist Extinction, Berkley: University of

California Press, 1992, p. 159. 98 Patrick Brogan, op.cit., pp. 37-38. 99 Hans-Hermann Hertle, ‘The Fall of the Wall: The Unintended Dissolution of East

Germany’s Rulling Regime’, in Cold War International History Project (The End of the Cold

War), Issue 12/13, Fall/Winter 2001, pp. 131-164. 100 Bernard Brigouleix, op. cit., pp. 233-237. 101 Peter Alter, op. cit., pp. 219-220.

The ‘German Problem’ Then and Now: from the Threat of <

55

framework. However, the geopolitical implications of reunification, albeit

German enthusiasm and determination, were extremely complex and it

took a rather long time to be adequately dealt with.

No one expected the Soviet Union not to intervene; after all, the

management of the ‘German Problem’ represented the core and also the

stake of the Cold War and none of the superpowers was willing to risk its

image and prestige by renouncing its part of Germany in favor of the other.

But Gorbachev’s USSR did. Why? According to Patrick Brogan, both

Washington and Moscow

‘were dragged along, bewildered and slightly nervous, in the

wake of the Germans’ rush to unity. What would they do with a country

that was a member of both NATO and the Warsaw Pact? This, obviously,

was the real sticking point. The question is what price could the Soviet

Union extract from the West for removing its troops from eastern

Germany and accepting that a united Germany would be a member of

NATO alone.’102

With other words, in his struggle to modernize the stagnant Soviet

Union and the communist ideology as well, Gorbachev agreed to the

reunification of Germany in exchange of the country’s sustained financial

contribution to its reformist program. Germany was the only strong

economy with a major reason for doing so, and it also agreed to ‘cover the

costs of repatriating the Soviet troops.’103 The total price West Germany had

to pay for the reunification was about ‘60 billion Deutschmarks.’104 Other

Western countries also contributed to Gorbachev’s efforts, but in the

backwash of German reunification and Eastern Europe’s anti-communist

revolutions, the Soviet colossus was unable to survive and it slowly

disintegrated.

After the reunification euphoria had passed, the Germans were

confronted both with external and internal challenges. In the first case, the

historical experience induced by the ‘German Problem’ disquieted France,

Poland and Great Britain. These states were main victims of past German

102 Patrick Brogan, op.cit., p. 43. 103 Timothy Garton Ash, Istoria prezentului. Eseuri, schițe și relatări din Europa anilor ’90, Iași:

Polirom, 2002, p. 59. 104 David Pryce Jones, The War That Never Was. The Fall Of The Soviet Empire, 1985-1991,

London: Phoenix Press, 2001, p. 286.

Emanuel Copilaş

56

aggressions and they needed insurances against an eventual resurgence of

German hegemonic tendencies.105 They would receive them in the

discourses and the activities of the reunited country, which renounced all

its potential territorial claims and strongly reaffirmed its Europenity. The

internal challenges were firstly of economical nature. West Germany had to

cover the huge costs of the dysfunctional economy of the east and the weak

Ostmark, which’s valued about 10% of the Western Deutschmark. This

resulted into enormous financial efforts and a wave of unemployment in

the Western part of the country, triggering social tensions as former West

Germans feared they would lose their jobs in favor of the Ossis. 106

In time, both types of challenges were properly addressed.

Economical conditions gradually begun to improve, even if social tensions

were never completely eradicated, and neither the structural disparities

between the former East and West Germany. Although not at all negligible,

social issues raised by the reunification are not strong enough to pose a

present or even a future threat to the German feeling of a common identity,

a sense of community shared both by former Westerners and Easterners.

For the foreseeable future, the German unity is irreversible.

At the international level, the German foreign policy entered a

phase of ‘normalization’, which consisted in a firmer articulation of

national interest, a will to ‘take on greater responsibilities internationally’, a

peaceful and reassuring approach towards the neighbors and a determined

position regarding the irreversibility of the past.107 However, a more

powerful appropriation of its identity, legitimate interests and role on the

international scene does not mean that Germany planes to separate itself

from the European Union; on the contrary, it represents the awareness of a

certain maturity Germany reached during the last century, especially in its

second half, which justifies its present emancipation, but also its ability to

learn from past mistakes. After all, the European Union, a more integrated

and politicized form of the European Community, emerged basically as a

response to the post-Cold War ‘German Problem’108, which remains and

will continue to do so in the predictable future its basic component. As

105 Peter Alter, op. cit, p. 228. 106 Christin von Krockow, op. cit., pp. 357-369. 107 Lisbeth Aggestam, ‘Germany’, in Ian Manners; Richard Whitman, op. cit., p. 71 108 Robert Gilpin, Economia Mondială în Secolul XXI. Provocarea capitalismului global, Iași:

Polirom, 2004, p. 152.

The ‘German Problem’ Then and Now: from the Threat of <

57

Timothy Garton Ash wrote in a recent book, ‘the true center of Europe is

Germany.’109

Concluding remarks: the European answer to the post-Cold

War ‘German Problem’ and the metamorphosis of a national

identity

The post-Cold War European Community renamed the European

Union, represented a fundamental compromise between political and

economical interests of two former historical rivals: France and Germany.

The weaker actor, France, wanted to secure itself with reference to German

economical power. As a consequence, it received an equal control as its

counterpart ‘over the monetary and financial European affairs’, and even

an advance regarding ‘the management of European economy’ in general.

However, France was also a traditional advocate of a ‘Europe of nations’,

opting for a less integrationist approach of the European construction, one

in which it could retain a more independent position. Germany, on the

other hand ‘wanted the European political unity to confirm the return of

the country towards democratic Europe and to guarantee that it would be a

peaceful country, without nationalist tendencies.’ Beside these moral-

philosophical reasons, Germany was also pragmatic: the more united

Europe becomes the more dominant its position becomes. In the end,

equilibrium was achieved through the willingness of the two parts to

cooperate, although certain issues remained suspended.110

Today, Germany has taken its rightful place among Europe’s

leaders as the unquestionable ‘economical motor’ of the Union. However,

the Cold War is over and Germany can no longer be understood as an

‘economic giant’ while a ‘political dwarf’. Starting with the 1999 Kosovo

crisis and then, with NATO’s 2001 Afghanistan involvement, Germany

took part, ‘for the first time after 1945’ to ‘military operations within

109 Timothy Garton Ash, Lumea liberă. America, Europa și viitorul surprinzător al Occidentului,

București: Incitatus, 2006, p. 73. 110 Robert Gilpin, op. cit., pp. 153-154.

Emanuel Copilaş

58

NATO’.111 Nevertheless, it remained a convinced ‘civilian power’, but ‘it

should be pointed out that the idea of civilian power does not necessarily

equate a pacifist renunciation of the use of military force under any

circumstances.’112 Contemporary Germany is assuming a more prominent

political role than West Germany did and tries to come to terms with the

past trough an adequate apprehension of present problems. But, despite

the geopolitical changes that occurred meanwhile, Germany firmly

continues the ‘European politics’ initiated by the famous West German

Chancellors like Konrad Adenauer, Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt or

Helmut Kohl.113

In the end, one of Robert Cooper’s diplomatic maxims, inspired by

one of the most famous architects of the European construction, Jean

Monnet, is most suitable when referring to the present status of the

‘German Problem’. It states that ‘when you have a problem that you cannot

fix, enlarge the context.’114 Monnet applied it to the irreconcilable French-

German dispute and its solution within the ‘enlarged context’ of the

European Community, but I believe it can be successfully applied to the

‘German Problem’ itself. The ‘enlarged context’ of the postwar ‘German

Problem’ is identical to that of the French-German rivalry: the postwar

European and, to a certain extent, international response to it induced, as I

tried to argument all along this study, a metamorphosis of the German

national identity. In its absence, Germany would have certainly looked

different, and it is most probable that, to paraphrase Peter Calvocoressi, its

‘*un+exorcized military spirit’ would once again have caused the world and

itself extreme and maybe impossible to cure injuries.

The European Union, understandable in this case as a post-Cold

War enlarged context of the new form the ‘German Problem’ has taken –

appears to be, until now, the best ‘containment’ method regarding its

eventual resurgence. But the most powerful factor which contributed to the

satisfactory solution offered to the issue was, beside external and rather

111 Sylvain Kahn, Geopolitica Uniunii Europene, Chișinău: Cartier, 2008, p. 77. 112 Lisbeth Aggestam, ‘Germany’, in Ian Manners; Richard Whitman, op. cit., p. 80. 113 Sylvain Kahn, op. cit., p. 82; Lisbeth Aggestam, ‘Germany’, in Ian Manners; Richard

Whitman, op. cit., p. 80. 114 Robert Cooper, Destrămarea Națiunilor. Ordine și haos în secolul XXI, București: Univers

Enciclopedic, 2007, p. 167.

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59

coercive, internal and willingly assumed: the metamorphosis of the

German national identity.

Emanuel Copilaş

60

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