Germany's New Right

LIBERATING NATIONALISM FROM HISTORY

When the Berlin Wall collapsed in 1989, a number of observers predicted that a reunited Germany would begin experimenting with its newfound power and revert to the bellicose habits of the past. The Bonn political elite, however, has been remarkably resistant to change. While Chancellor Helmut Kohl has flirted with attempts to "normalize" Germany's Nazi past and create a self-confident nation, and the Bavarian Christian Social Union has bucked the pro-Europe course, he and his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) have not deviated from their efforts to submerge a unified Germany in a federal Europe that boasts a common currency. Nor have any of the other major political parties, from Kohl's coalition partner, the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), to the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Even the antinomian Greens embrace the idea of a centralized Europe as a means of diluting German economic and military power. In his new book, The Wrong Path of Nationalism, Heiner Geissler, former general secretary of the CDU, expresses the conventional wisdom: "Germany has achieved its great successes in economic, social, and foreign policy not as a classical nation-state, but rather as a democratic, cosmopolitan, and European-oriented country."[1] Konrad Adenauer's famous campaign slogan, "No Experiments!" remains the unofficial motto of postwar Germany.

Since 1989, however, this doctrine has begun to be challenged by the elite that first created, in the nineteenth century, the idea of a unified German nation: German intellectuals. A change is taking place in Germany, not at the political but at the intellectual level. Whether or not it turns into a political movement or is taken up by one of the established political parties, the change will have a serious impact on Germany's redefinition of its identity and interests in the new Europe. Fought largely over the lessons of the past, today's and coming battles about national pride could well shape Germany's future. In modern Germany politics does not make history; history makes politics.