Germany - Becoming a Normal Nation

Ed note: What follows is a recent email exchange between myself and "Ms B" - a German national. The exchange resulted in the postscript at the end of the article.

Dear Mr Machiavelli,

I have obtained your email address from your interesting and stimulating web site, The Razor. I have enjoyed reading it, and also learnt from it. Those articles that I did not learn from, I already agreed with!

I hope you do not mind me emailing you, but I was surprised at an article which you link to on your home page, which seems to depart from your usual style. I am referring to the one entitled "German Ingratitude". It is fair that I should admit before I start that I am German!

I am sure that you know the page, so I will not describe it. I was expecting another interesting article, in which you adhere to your stated aim of investigating something in an unbiased manner. You say in your "Letter to M":

President Gerald Ford once said, "one can disagree without being disagreeable." It's a policy that I've always attempted to follow myself since it allows one to learn from one's opponent - to keep an open mind while at the same time evaluating and critiquing one's own beliefs.

Does your approach in "German Ingratitude" not deviate from this? I had been expecting a missive on why Der Spiegel was incorrect in stating that the war against Iraq was not about oil. It seems though that you believe that the current generation of Germans (two after that responsible for the actions in WWII) is the same as that of their grandparents. Would you also disregard any comment by the British, knowing that they started concentration camps circa 1900?

Should American opinion be disregarded because of the terrible slave trade? How many generations must pass before the individuals within a nation may be heard? Does Der Spiegel have a point, or not?

I am interested in your opinion.

Regards, Ms. B

Dear Ms. B

Whether or not the British invented the concentration camp, they were perfected by the Germans. And just as an American I bear the shame of slavery even though my family arrived here after the Civil War - so too will the German people forever bear the scars of the Holocaust. Just as you have every right to celebrate Beethoven and Planck, you must bear the shame of Hitler and Mengele. Citizenship requires accepting the history of the nation you belong to - its good as well as its bad.

The Der Spiegel cover proclaiming "No Blood for Oil" while turning an M-16 into communist hammer and sickle is insulting: it is not polite disagreement between friends. Not only is it insulting, it ignores the facts:

Where was the oil in Afghanistan in 2001? Where was the oil in Somalia 1993? Where was the oil in Bosnia in 1995? Or how about Japan, South Korea or Germany - nations where American soldiers are still present? Where is the oil in those places?

Besides, since when did oil become something one does not fight over? Your country is more dependent on Middle Eastern oil than mine. Only 15% of American oil comes from the Middle East; most of ours comes from the Western Hemisphere. Most of yours comes from the Middle East. Should Bin Laden attain his dream of charging $144 per barrel of oil, your economy would suffer - not mine.

Der Spiegel crossed the line - as did your leader Gerhard Schroeder during his campaign last Autumn. Europeans seem gripped by virulent anti-Americanism, believing in the delusion of American Empire even as they exist as proof that an American Empire is an illusion. After all, Germany is not an American state, nor is France or the UK. 58 years ago we had the opportunity to make it so, but instead we chose to help your nations rebuild with the Marshall Plan and then pretty much have left you alone. Oh, and the American troops in your nation were as much a guarantee to the French that your nation would not remilitarize as much as they were to containing the Soviet Union.

Germans have a right to disagree with American policy. Yours is a free people. However, Germany and France have gone beyond "disagreeing between friends" to threatening to wreck American policy - and for what? Saddam Hussein?

Ask yourself why this petty tyrant is being shielded by your government and France's. Is it because your government has undermined the UN sanctions set up in 1991? Is it afraid that this knowledge will become public if the US and its allies invades? France will be out several billion dollars worth of contracts with Iraq. Is that why they are promising to stop the war?

Is Saddam a threat to the region? He has attacked his neighbors several times. He supports terror groups in Israel. He has used chemical weapons on the Kurds and Iranians. He has attempted to assassinate former president Bush on a visit to Kuwait in 1995. And he is suspected as being behind the anthrax attack in my country in 2001.

Why should Germany care if the Iraqi people are freed from tyranny in the same way that your people was in 1945? Forget the anti-American rhetoric for a moment and ask yourself "why?".

As an American with extensive contacts to Europe, I am saddened by how quickly France and Germany have turned against the United States. Considering that the EU criticized America for not wanting to involve itself in the conflict in Bosnia, it now criticizes America for wanting to involve itself in Iraq.

It's hypocrisy, and it's ingratitude. To top it off, it's rude.

I am not sure how the relations between Europe and the USA will heal after this rift. It's a damned shame really considering we share the common threat of Islamic terrorism. Perhaps it will take a large scale attack against Europe for Europeans to understand the change Sept 11 has brought to my country. For humanitarian reasons, I hope not.

Again, ask yourself why Germany and France wish to keep Saddam in power. The answers may be much more revealing than any of my essays.

Regards

Nic

Dear Mr Machiavelli,

But this is great! I am surprised that all this information is not on your web page, because I think it would benefit people to read it (the purpose of my previous email). Many of us have not studied politics, recent history and foreign policy as you have, so what you write below clarifies your point and is interesting and stimulating.

Regards,

Ms B.

Ms B

The point: That German pacifism is a relic of Germany's past aggression. In a sense it is like Germany as a nation is over-compensating for its past by swinging to the other side - in this case, pacifism.

What Germany needs to do is "move on" and become a "normal nation". Part of being a normal nation is coming to terms with the nation's past and accepting it. Germany must recognize that another part of this acceptance is the reality that normal nations field armies to protect their interests, and this does not have to be viewed as neo-Bismarkian imperialism. Sometimes wars are necessary, and Germany's denial of this fact is an over-reaction to its past.

I'll work it out later. All I wish to say is that I - and those on the Right Wing of Politics in the USA - do not view Germany as an enemy. We simply want it to stop reacting to events through the prism of 1945. The past is done. Yes it needs to be remembered, but Germany can do this without accepting the delusion of pacifism.

Regards Nic

Postscript:

As Germany continues to evolve, Gerhard Schroeder's pacifism and courting of anti-Americanism is an unsustainable strategy. First, Germany is much closer to the "front" of Islamic fascism, having a large group of unassimilated and discontented Islamic immigrants. As the USA becomes a harder target to hit both within the United States and abroad, Islamic terrorists will gravitate towards softer targets. We have all ready seen evidence of this in last year's al-Qaeda attack on a synogogue in Tunisia which killed German tourists. As Germans become targets for terror, the German people will push for the government to take a harder line in the war against terror. Secondly, Germany itself will evolve. Tying itself to the heart of Europe was at first a strategy by the victors of World War 2. As time passed, Germany took up the strategy in the same way a recovering alcoholic takes up sobriety. As such it may trumpet its new found "role" as a way of reassuring itself as much as reassuring its neighbors. It should be noted that while the USA was happy to see a re-united Germany, many in Europe - especially in the East having suffered under Nazi tyranny- were not. Finally, as the horrors of Iraq are brought out into the open, many Germans will question the reasons behind their government's pre-invasion pacifism - especially because the brutality of Saddam's terror echoes that of the Nazis.