Cold waking-up to reality for Germany

[Skybird]

So0me worth-to-read reflections on Germany's limited role in the world.

The United States believes that it is not obligated to consult with its allies because it feels sufficiently confident in its own strength. This makes it easier for the Americans to take political action than for the Germans to. Whenever the Americans feel that something is truly important to them, they suddenly become unilateralists. They take it upon themselves to make decisions. The Germans, on the other hand, are virtually powerless to make international decisions on their own, and perhaps this is not even their intention. This is why they are multilateralists, their decisions consistently dependent on seeking allies. Germany does want to exert its influence on world events, but its role as a medium-sized power precludes it from being able to assert this claim. (...)
Merkel is now being forced to realize that she is no longer stands at Europe's helm. Sarkozy, even if he calms down, has far more élan than Chirac, who doddered toward the end of his term. The new British prime minister, Gordon Brown, is no lame duck -- as Tony Blair was for a prolonged period of time -- but a man with great ambitions. Neither of the two men is burdened by the histories of their respective countries.
After the catastrophe of the Third Reich, the Germans were forced to behave in a different way on the international stage. They learned to be modest. For a country with such a horrific past, it was unseemly to mention national interests and, even more so, to pursue them. The sort of unbroken national consciousness that prevails in the United States, France and Great Britain could no longer exist in Germany. But the Germans managed to turn this drawback into a virtue, building a reputation for being understanding and reserved. They developed the principle: What is good for Europe is good for Germany. In his book "Germany's Return -- an Undivided Postwar History," journalist Peter Bender pointed out that East Germany was particularly socialistic while West Germany was particularly European, because both were no longer permitted to be truly German.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...498578,00.html

[Rockin Robbins]

Germany woke up to reality long ago! Of course with the reuniting of East and West Germany there has been a period of catching their breath. It always costs to help your neighbor. But do not confuse present inaction with weakness. Once Germany makes up for the decades of Communist rule in East Germany and achieves one nation, they will amaze the world.

They learned the reality that conquest is no way to prosperity and learned that in 1945. Now they are consolidating their internal condition in preparation for a prosperity that none will be able to deny. Germany a non-player in the world? Don't bet on it!

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Germany woke up to reality long ago! Of course with the reuniting of East and West Germany there has been a period of catching their breath. It always costs to help your neighbor. But do not confuse present inaction with weakness. Once Germany makes up for the decades of Communist rule in East Germany and achieves one nation, they will amaze the world.

The costs of and perspectives/chances for reunification had been seen in a bright, neon-pink light - and now it is eating us up. Fact is that the eastern part of Germayn FOR DECADES never will reach the level of economical developement and employment you see in the old, western federal states - if ever. Fact is that villages, cities are dying, that the young walk away, that there are whole regions where you find only old people anymore. The changes in population structures are by far the most drastic to be seen anywhere in europe since WWII and its trecks of fleeing people. Fact is that needed professionals and experts stay away, and that in more and more regions even the most minial and basic health care service becomes a serious problem to maintain, becasue doctors stay away. Fact is that especially the young women go West, making the East of Germany the one region in europe with the most negative number relations between males and females, making it extzremely difficult for the staying young males to find a wife. Left behind are males who are not qualified to find work in the West, nursing a self-perception of being memeber of the club of incapable loosers. Looking at it "realpolitisch", it is true. All this keeps tax incomes for the states at a low, and makes sure that growth and prosperity is centred on some urbanized hotspots and major cities. Politicians have stopped talking about the time when West and East will meet on equal living standards. Only unions do that anymore, but fail to give realistic calculations how that should be payed for. Most people think - and experts calculate that, too - that this simply never will be. I agree on that assessement. Also, we have a massive difference in wage levels in east and West, but the economy that tries to develope in the East from the beginning is designed to depend on those low Eastern wages, which means that if the level would be raised later, it would bring the economy in the East into turmoil. fourty years of separation simply was too much and made both parts of Germany too different in developement as if that could be compensated, or neutralized. To imagine that Helmut kohl talked of "blooming meadows in the east" within 15 years back in 1989, 1990 - how naive, how terribly off reality, how incompetent he/we have been. the costs so far already are mutiple times higher than what initially was expected.

The problems of reunification notoriously are underestimated by the audience in other nations. we meanwhile learned it better, and learned it the hard way. I fear you will have to wait long until the east of germany starts to amaze the world again. There will be no second Wirtschaftswunder (the first one massively boosted by the Marshal aid plan anyway).

They learned the reality that conquest is no way to prosperity and learned that in 1945. Now they are consolidating their internal condition in preparation for a prosperity that none will be able to deny. Germany a non-player in the world? Don't bet on it!

war has driven out all nationalism (positive as well as negatives extremes) of German psyche. That was the intention of the Allies as well, when they, especially america, insisted on certain keyparts of the new german constitution being designed in a way that the forming of a strong centralized governemnt power would be impossible. Never again a new Prussia! this is one major reason for the very complicated relations between government and the small chamber of parliament, the Bundesrat, where the chiefs of the federal states are situated. It was designed to prevent a strong, centralized government, and make it vulnerable to the demands of the federal states. It also was meant as a temporary measure only, that's why we have no constitution, only a basic law replacing it (Grundgesetz). The intention was that after reunification the basic law should be replaced or be turned into an official constitution, redesigning the laws according to the new situation caused by reunification. but in the fourty years before, the federal state'S ministre presidents learned to love the immense power they had, and were not willing to give it up again, so the originally planned replacing of the Grundgesetz with a constitution that maybe - with Germany being a fully sovereign state after 1989 again - also would have strengthened the position of the government, never took place, and never will take place - nobody talks about it anymore, and most people on the streets do not even know the background.

the article is not aiming at all this so much, anyway, but focusses more on the recent past. After the EU presidency and the many compliments for merkel and the endless "negotiating" with Iran it was thought and expected that some fruits would come from appeasing iran, and that some credit from the presidency would survive and translate into a stronger sense of international teamplay. Of course, that was naive. German policy often is pleagued by naivety. recent political events have brought berlin down to the grounds of reality again. And the reality is that Germany wants to be a bigger player than it really is, and thinks that others care more for berlin than they actually do, and that German words are as weighty as political, military, economical and/or unilateral acts and deeds as to be seen by Britain, France, america. Germany wants to play by its own rules - and now is wondering that others don't give a damn for these rules.

Never forget that germans are notorious dreamers, or better: idealists, all German culture and history reveals that, wether it be literature, or painted arts, or music. It's our strength, and our nemesis. This could work for what is of beauty (the socalled German "Romantik", and the idealistic quest to find the blue flower), or it's emotional energy could turn into a nightmare: the Third Reich. It's the same kind of deep-laying passion, just channelled into different directions.

It's only a thin red line between reason and insanity. Germans are living proof for that.

[Camaero]

You Germans have almost conquered half the world twice in the last 100 years. I think you need to have a little time out.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Camaero

You Germans have almost conquered half the world twice in the last 100 years. I think you need to have a little time out.

Yes - almost. Never really. Compared to that, some newer players with greater successes with these ambitions need more than just a little timeout then, by your standards.

Anyway, that is nonsens what you say because you imply that germany does not have changed politically, militarily and - most important - psychologically. but I would say that the German society of the present is totally "wehrunfähig", no matter in what context and with regard to what challenges.

Originally Posted by Skybird

war has driven out all nationalism (positive as well as negatives extremes) of German psyche. That was the intention of the Allies as well, when they, especially america, insisted on certain keyparts of the new german constitution being designed in a way that the forming of a strong centralized governemnt power would be impossible.

I wish our centralized gov't would do that as well here in the US. Our Federal gov't is much too strong. It regularly holds the states hostage,.