Two times two Germanies - Column

National Review, Feb 6, 1995 by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

THE European countries are muddling along, suffering the pains of growing together, but also left directionless by the end of the Cold War and weakened by a spiritual malaise. But within this general drift Germany has its own peculiar problems, which derive not only from the Nazis and World War II but before that, as George F. Kennan said so correctly, from the outcome of World War I, the source of all our evils.

Journalists and politicians commenting on last October's elections duly noted that there are still two Germanies. In fact, it would be truer to say that there are two times two Germanies. Not only are there the free Germany of Bonn, fully part of the West, and the former German Democratic Republic, a Soviet satellite for 45 years; there is also the prior division between the big southwest, predominantly Catholic and harboring Germany's oldest historic sites, and the northeast, largely Protestant and Prussian in its memories. The old Prussia had its virtues--among them hard work and discipline--but these were deeply undermined by four decades of Marxist collectivism. Only 30 per cent of the children in the East today have been baptized; the work ethic has sunk to a terrible low; and a large share of the people have become so accustomed to the collectivist welfare state that even now, four years after reunification, sizable numbers of them voted for the Party of Democratic Socialism, the successor to the Communist Party.

Although this was still not enough to give the Left a majority in the Bundestag (the lower house of parliament), it was enough to affect the Christian Democratic Union's present behavior and probable future course. Already in two of the new federal states the CDU has had to enter into coalitions with its rival throughout the postwar period, the Social Democratic Party. And now the CDU leadership, with an eye to the future, is casting friendly glances in the direction of the Greens. The calculation is that the liberal Free Democrats might not, at the next election four years from now, manage to clear the 5 per cent threshold, and so the CDU is looking for a potential new coalition partner. Actually, the Green connection is not as far-fetched as it might seem. While many Greens are of the radical Left, many others follow a perverted conservatism, dreaming of an Eden-like agrarian world without factories, cars, pollution, and atomic-energy plants.

Even as the reunified Germany reaches a crisis point, so does the European Union, and the place of Germany within it. With over 80 million inhabitants (compared to about 60 million each for France, Italy, and the United Kingdom), Germany is by far the most populous country west of Russia. Amazingly, perhaps, this does not worry the British, Italians, or French as much as it worries the Germans themselves. Partly, this is because bigness within the EU means being expected to take on a number of tasks, and that means financial sacrifices and perhaps even military involvement. But more than that, it reminds Germans that their country really is a Grossmacht, a major power, evoking memories of the Third Reich, which they want to forget entirely.

Hence the profound ambivalence about the former Yugoslavia. Germany's first impulse was to side with the breakaway republics against Serb aggression, and Germany did rush to recognize the newly independent Croatia and Slovenia. But when France and Britain declined to take steps to stop the slaughter in Bosnia, the Kohl government went along--prompting the resignation from the cabinet of the CDU's Herr Schwarz-Schilling, a Christian gentleman. And when that wonderful Mr. Karadzic (who surely will someday get the Nobel Peace Prize) denounces Germany, Austria, and the Vatican as the criminals who, in World War II, destroyed the glorious "Yugoslavia," the German Left unanimously agrees that no German soldier should reappear on the Sava or the Drina. Even the question of whether Germany should send its air force to Bosnia in the event that the UN bluehelmets have to be evacuated created a minor storm in the Bonn parliament.

The simple truth is that Germany is a castrated nation. France had a Revolution with sadistic atrocities not matched until this century, and then the Napoleonic armies drowned nearly all of Europe in blood. Yet forty years after Waterloo French armies were again on the march--in Algeria, Spain, Italy, Russia. By contrast, fifty years after the fall of the Third Reich, Germany dares do nothing that would revive the memory of those days.

The only positive element in the German situation today is the deeper understanding with France. The Christian Democrat Helmut Kohl and the Socialist Francois Mitterrand are on first-name terms. The German Federal Bank has repeatedly saved the franc, and now Mercedes is going to build its gigantic "Swatch-car" plant not in Germany but in French Lorraine.

Underlying all Germany's other problems is the moral problem. The porcification of Germany has made enormous strides. Sex shops blossom even in smaller cities. There is a frightful crisis in the Lutheran Church. And as for the Catholic Church, bishops look the other way when obscene presentations of the Body of Christ are exhibited in their churches (as "great art") and youth organizations distribute eye-popping sex games. Romans 12:2 ("Do not conform to this world") is everywhere forgotten.