JÖ¶rg Leonhard, Lothar Funk, eds. Ten Years of German Unification: Transfer, Transformation, Incorporation? Birmingham: Birmingham University Press, 2002. 224 pp. $30.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-902459-12-7.
Reviewed by Georg Menz (Goldsmiths College, University of London)
Published on H-German (June, 2003)
In 1990, when epochal transformations were sweeping the European subcontinent, unifying Germany attracted considerable attention and awe amongst its neighbors, some of it peppered with considerable concern over the future trajectory this re-emerging colossus at the heart of Europe would pursue. Unified Germany, it was widely hoped or feared, would combine the economic might of the West German engine with the COMECON's most advanced economy, and create overnight a country overtaking France and Britain in terms of geographical size, population, and quite possibly political influence. Chancellor Kohl's promise of "blossoming landscapes" in the East might have been as calculating and corrupt as his government turned out to be, but at the time it resonated with a popular wave of enthusiasm and hope for peace, prosperity, and democracy after a rather troubled and troublesome century in German political history. Indeed, unification dealt the West German Left a severe blow and secured Kohl eight more years in power. The Western Left's inability to accept the Eastern vote for rapid unification in 1990, without cynically deriding it as a vote for the Deutsche Mark, expressed both arrogance and an inability to come to terms with the end of the cushy Bonn Republic and the battles of the 1980s over nuclear energy and disarmament. Otto Schily, a founding member of the Green Party, who defected to the SPD and waved a banana into the sights of the cameramen when asked for the root causes of the 1990 elections, was one symbol of this failure of the Western Left and may have single-handedly done more for the CDU's grip on power throughout the early 1990s than Kohl ever could.
Thirteen years later, Germany is still struggling to define its position and role in international politics, while its recent economic performance reflects the difficulties encountered in digesting a sorely backward and hugely overrated economy. In addition, the wholesale transfer of institutions eastward has proven costly, as de-industrialization has meant rising unemployment, and a subsequent drain on the welfare and unemployment compensation system. It is for this reason that many neoliberal pundits proclaim Germany to be the new "sick man of Europe," not without a dose of Schadenfreude, and prescribe the dubious medicine of Thatcherism as a cure. More worrying still is the rise of right wing extremism, violent xenophobia, and spiteful nationalism that unification seems to have spawned or rather rendered salonfähig. With unemployment reaching nearly twenty percent in parts of eastern Germany (as in Saxony-Anhalt), and with massive westward migration leading to alarming de-population (as in Mecklenburg-Pomerania), will the East become a perennial laggard, a German Mezzogiorno?
This is surely a well-chosen moment for some stock-taking, which is precisely the enterprise Leonhard and Funk's edited collection of essays on German history, politics, society, legal system, and economics "ten years after" attempts to undertake. As with any edited volume, some contributions are more convincing than others. In general, one would have hoped for a more ambitious set of questions to be addressed: What were the alternatives to unification? What were the alternatives to this colonial style of unification? Why was the East German baby of social security and female empowerment thrown out with the bath water of authoritarianism? Why was the provisional Basic Law not replaced with a proper constitution?
The volume is at its strongest where contributors attempt historical comparisons to sketch continuities, similarities and breaks with past history that the bourgeois revolution of 1989 and subsequent unification represent (Leonhard and Grix). It is equally interesting, if on more contested grounds, where it assesses some of the shortcomings and mistakes pursued by Kohl in economic policy during and immediately after the unification process (Czada, Hefeker and Wunner, Frowen). By contrast, I found those chapters less compelling where the authors mix normative policy prescriptions with analysis of the German economy or its foreign policy (Hacke, Funk, Klodt, Wuensche). One peril that not all contributors manage to avoid is the treatment of unification as a tabula rasa or Stunde Null, when, with the benefit of hindsight (and perhaps surprisingly), it actually was not. Indeed, it is the continuity, rather than the radical upheaval, that make the events of the early 1990s so astonishing.
Not all comparisons are equally stimulating. Sabrow compares the GDR with Nazism, only to conclude that these are not two different sides of the coin, with the key difference being the reliance of National Socialism on charismatic leadership, something the borish grey GDR leaders could have never hoped to display. More promising are Grix and Bauerkaemper who add sociological insights when "bringing the masses back in." Bauerkaemper demonstrates how the GDR perpetuated and enhanced an East Elbian culture of authoritarian paternalism and state regulation, while quickly adding that much of the purported difference in political culture between East and West may have been brought on by rapid unification that sought ideologically to de-legitimize completely the ancien regime. However, the longing for a strong state to provide cradle-to-grave social security and Ostalgia linger on. Jarausch attempts to sketch continuing domestic debates in Germany over the legacy of fascism and state socialism, yet succumbs to a tendency to Nabelschau that he criticizes himself. The cumbersome search for a German identity that is democratic and non-threatening is, by necessity, uniquely German because of the country's idiosyncrasy, hence comparisons with other European countries appear less helpful. This process ought to be open-ended, rather than aiming for a static and unsettlingly fuzzy aim like Habermas' constitutional patriotism. A continuing search can actually be quite healthy, as Jarausch concedes himself and--as long as an exhibition on the war crimes of the Wehrmacht can mobilize old and new Nazis, pandering to the myth of the decent German army vis-a-vis the evil Nazi SS--it appears quite necessary. The legacy of the past, more specifically the Pandora's box of the dreaded secret police Stasi files, are explored convincingly by Gill, while Deutelmoser analyzes the new constitutions of the eastern Laender.
The 1990s were not only about continuity in German history, however. 1998 marked the rise to power and the coming of age of the German generation of 1968. Unfortunately, Hacke either fails to understand or chooses deliberately to downplay the ways in which unified Germany has started to flex its muscles in foreign policy. Commencing with the disastrous decision to recognize Croatia and Slovenia diplomatically in 1991 (ahead of any other EU member) under Kohl, and continuing with the Red-Green coalition's questionable participation in the air raids on Yugoslavia in 1999, unified Germany, especially and ironically under the stewardship of the grey-haired products of the 1980s peace movement, has embarked on fundamentally new paths. The German government did not act "only under international pressure." It was not "forced to act" (pp. 116-17). Instead, it helped add oil to the Balkan flames and later led German forces into an out-of-area war of aggression with no U.N. figleaf, in breach of NATO's purported aims, and in clear breach of the German constitution. Since then, it has assisted the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, something difficult to construct as constituting "Germany's vital interests vis-a-vis key actors on and beyond the European continent" (p. 119). Following German refusal to partake in the United States' latest imperialist adventures in Iraq, Washington has made it quite clear just how unwilling it is to listen to European concerns or skepticism, which renders Hacke's observation--that transatlantic ties are "maintained and strengthened" by Fischer's "skillful manner" (119), making it "America's most important partner" (p. 120)--already obsolete. Also quite troublingly, Hacke refers to Germany's compliance with European Union (EU) sanctions against an Austrian government comprising the far-right Freedomites as "opportunistic" (p. 122). Frankly, this type of opportunism seems preferable to misguided pan-Germanic solidarity with a neo-fascist party.
Given the German economy's fall from grace and its transformation from Wunderkind to Sorgenkind, it appears appropriate to dedicate six chapters to the transformation of Modell Deutschland, especially since this subject is hotly debated both by academics (Streeck 1996, Patterson and Harding 2000) and in the context of the so-called Standortdebatte in Germany. Czada stands out as the best amongst the bunch, though he fails to discuss the role of the European economic integration in the early 1990s in undermining some of the pillars of the German model. However, his discussion of disintegrating industrial relations, particularly pronounced in the East, and the slow farewell from Rhineland-style bank loan financing rewards close reading. Hefeker and Wunner point to mistakes made in the process of monetary union, and the opague and ultimately corrupt mass privatization of East German state-owned enterprises. A discussion of the sale of the Leuna oil refineries and chain of gas stations to French giant Elf, lubricated by generous French donations to Kohl's CDU party coffers, would have further strengthened their case. They are on thinner ground when arguing that the high wage policy pursued by the unions in the East, coupled with lower productivity, has deterred both West German and foreign investors and has helped perpetuate unemployment. Here, they seem to be unaware of low unionization and widespread substandard "wildcat" wage agreements, as mentioned in Czada's chapter, which allow for considerably lower wages and more "flexible" labor conditions in the East, yet still fail to attract investors.
Funk chimes in with the chorus of neoliberal critics of the German model, alleging that this model displays sclerosis and stasis, hence creating mass unemployment. In classic Thatcherite manner, trade unions and their excessive wage demands are portrayed as the key culprits. Yet the figures he cites clearly demonstrate that the (West) German economy easily outperformed other "models" like the United States and the Netherlands until the 1990s, to say nothing of other neoliberal models like the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Since then, unemployment has emerged primarily as a regional and an age-specific problem in Germany. Just like in parts of "post-industrial" northern England, East Germany displays unemployment rates between tweleve and eighteen percent. By contrast, just like in the United Kingdom, southern states like Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg are humming along with near full employment. Likewise, German unemployment is a problem affecting the cohort of workers over forty years old, made redundant from manufacturing and the rapidly shrinking public sector, a problem hardly peculiar to Germany. How can neoliberal catch-all policy address such regional disparities? Klodt is highly critical of transfer payments and public subsidies to private industries in the East, relying instead on establishing "international competitiveness" amongst East German business, leaving it unclear what exactly this entails. Funk suggests Thatcherite measures: lower welfare benefits, stricter eligibility criteria, wage constraints, and hence the creation of low-wage jobs as in the United States or the Netherlands. The problem, he claims, are the unions, hence he calls for the not-so-invisible hand of the state to intervene and manhandle the unions into making concessions, not unlike the Dutch government did prior to Wassenaar.
Unfortunately, time has not been kind to the "Dutch miracle," if ever there was one. Economic growth is petering out in Holland, and the dark aspects of wage and social policy restructuring are becoming obvious. Likewise, U.S.-style welfare "reform" has created the destitute "working poor," forced to compete for unsustainable wage levels. In the Netherlands, "beggar-thy-neighbor"-style low wage policy has sought to undercut German wages and thus attract investment. Simultaneously, the previous policy of early retirement through the generous allowance of invalidity benefits has been partially reversed, though invalidity benefits are still used to mask the true extent of unemployment. Indeed, unemployment remains a serious problem amongst youth and ethnic minorities despite a policy of wage restraint as well as subtle and less subtle means of prodding and cajoling welfare recipients to take up the part-time or short-term contracts mushrooming in Holland. This climate of insecurity, euphemistically referred to as "flexibility," provides fertile ground for far-right populists like Fortuyn.
It is not just that the side effects of the neoliberal medication might be worse than the disease. More fundamentally, the whole angst-ridden search for presumably superior models of political-economic governance (that seriously holds up small, temporarily and superficially successful countries like the Netherlands as "models" to aspire to for Germany) appears both as an instance of Teutonic navel-gazing and unwillingness to consider fundamental differences in these countries' political culture, geography, and economic structure.
In sum, this is a worthy effort to analyze the implications of German unification for the political culture, legal framework, history, political system, and the economy of the country ten years after. At times, it appears that the contributors lose sight of the forest for the trees, and would have been better advised to broaden their scope of analytical inquiry. Nevertheless, this book makes a worthwhile contribution to what one might call "unification studies."
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Citation:
Georg Menz. Review of Leonhard, JÖ¶rg; Funk, Lothar, eds., Ten Years of German Unification: Transfer, Transformation, Incorporation?.
H-German, H-Net Reviews.
June, 2003.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=7672
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