Home › Features › Essays › The Once and Future German Question

The Once and Future German Question

By Anne-Marie Burley
Winter 1989/90
Article Summary and Author Biography

Recognition of the GDR by the FRG would be a "political masterstroke", in which merely formal separation would be outweighed by substantive unity on various social and economic issues. See also Margarita Mathiopoulos 'Peace would settle the German question' IHT 1 Nov 1989 p6.

Anne-Marie Burley is Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. She is currently finishing a book on the German question.

Print Email
Login or Register to leave a comment.

Sign-up for free weekly updates from ForeignAffairs.com.

The inner-German border is the fault line of Europe. The current revival of speculation about "the German question" in any form, therefore, sends tremors throughout the postwar structure of East-West relations. Headlines ask "Could Germany Turn East?"1 The turmoil in East Germany threatens the existence of a separate East German state. President Bush disclaims any "fear" of German reunification.

In short, the future of Germany has reemerged as an issue for both East and West. The premise is that "fundamental" German desires for nationhood have been long buried, or at least camouflaged, in an unavoidable concession to reality. But as the postwar order begins to loosen or even crumble, German longings for unity seem to spring forth undiminished.

In fact, however, the German question is rooted as much in foreign myth as in German reality. In clinging to fixed ideas about the political division or reunification of Germany, Western analysts and commentators miss the emergence of many far more vital and interesting opportunities and issues facing German leaders. It is time to take a new look at the German question-but from the inside out.

II

The key distinction is between the German question and the German problem. For the majority of Germans in the postwar period the common denominator of various versions of the German question has been how to bring the Germans back together. For the majority of their neighbors, however, the German problem has been how to keep them apart. Yet even inside the Federal Republic of Germany (F.R.G.), a precise definition of die deutsche Frage is hard to come by. West German politicians tend to use the phrase as a launching pad for excursions into their own favorite political utopias. All agree on the vital importance of improving human rights and living conditions for citizens of the German Democratic Republic (G.D.R.), and most espouse the general principle of achieving some form of German unity within the framework of a European peace order. Yet these phrases and formulas mask three quite different conceptions of what the German question is really all about:

This is a premium article

You must be a logged in Foreign Affairs subscriber to continue reading. If you wish to continue reading this article please subscribe , or activate your online account to get full online access.

Buy PDF

Buy a premium PDF reprint of this article.

Related

Essay, Apr 1968
German Policy Toward the East
Willy Brandt

Our foreign policy toward Eastern Europe is concerned with two closely linked areas: the Soviet Union, and the European states to the east and southeast of Germany which are connected with the Soviet Union in many ways. Although our foreign policy toward these states is called "East European policy," this term is relative. Countries like Poland or Czechoslovakia may lie east of Germany, but they have perfectly good geographical, historical and cultural reasons for regarding themselves as part and parcel of Central Europe.

Read
Essay, Spring 1980
Germany in a Semi-Gaullist Europe
Fritz Stern

The Afghanistan crisis has dramatized and intensified antecedent changes and strains in the Western alliance. There was unanimous, if separate, condemnation of Soviet aggression, but there were also divergent, and often acrimoniously divergent, assessments of the causes of aggression and the nature of the challenge. The difficulties of orchestrating a common response or of at least preventing a discordant one suggest a new balance of forces within the alliance and a set of divergent interests.

Read
Essay, Apr 1967
Bonn Changes Course
Theo Sommer

The German scene has changed beyond recognition. After years of drift and indecision, a new sense of vigor and purpose permeates Bonn. By 1966, stagnation had bred discontent; growing vexation touched off a leadership crisis which eventually engulfed the unfortunate Dr. Erhard; out of this crisis emerged the government of the Grand Coalition. For the first time in the history of postwar Germany, Christian Democrats and Social Democrats joined forces in a federal administration. In forging this new link, Kurt- Georg Kiesinger and Willy Brandt installed in power the biggest majority bloc any freely elected German parliament has ever seen-marshalling 447 out of 496 Bundestag votes. On this overwhelming combination turn both the anxieties and the hopes of the German people.

Read