Dieter Dettke, ed. The Spirit of the Berlin Republic. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2003. 288 pp. $50.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-57181-343-5.
Reviewed by Georg Menz (Goldsmiths College, University of London)
Published on H-German (January, 2004)
Auf Wiedersehen, Reticence: Charting the Unpleasant Spirit of the Berlin Republic
Auf Wiedersehen, Reticence: Charting the Unpleasant Spirit of the Berlin Republic
To paraphrase Churchill, there are lies, there are damn lies, and there are policy wonks. "The war in Afghanistan," writes editor Dieter Dettke in his epilogue, "was a perfectly legal use of force by the United States as a matter of self-defense." Regrettably, this line is indicative both of the politics that permeate this volume and of an unfortunate tendency to indulge a rosy-tinted vision of German willingness to "assume new responsibilities," thus ignoring and sidestepping the rather troubling aspects of the Berlin Republic. Ostensibly, the director of the Washington branch of the Social Democratic Friedrich Ebert Foundation has assembled some collaborators to chart the "spirit of the Berlin Republic." This term both seeks to denote the "new Germany" after the eastward move of the capital and to set it apart from Weimar and Bonn. What can be said about the new Germany's foreign policy, its domestic economic and social policy, and its cultural and educational sector? A second implicit question the book attempts to address is how outsiders, both from the neighboring countries and from the ranks of Germany's ethnic minorities, perceive of the Berlin Republic. The past fifteen years have been very eventful and tumultuous in German history and surely this is a well chosen moment in time for some stock-taking.
However, the problems with this collection already begin with its choice of authors. To do justice to this rather ambitious enterprise, it would have certainly been both courageous and refreshing to cast the net of contributors as wide as possible. Unfortunately, the choice of contributors to this selection of essays is as uninspired and conventional as the gist of most of the contributions. Where are the Young Turks here, both figuratively and literally speaking? Where are the artists and intellectuals, the businessmen and the churches, the trade unions, and the great many disenfranchised? Where are Germany's sociologists and its historians? And finally, where is a representative of that rare species, the "Ossi"? We are treated to an assembly of self-appointed policy "experts" from both sides of the Atlantic, with a few journalists and academics thrown in for good measure. While some Turkish and Jewish voices are added, even the selection of representatives of these communities appears conformist and uninspired: why not allot room for some loud-mouthed German-Turkish rappers or the polemical Jewish German Michel Friedman?
Even after having waded through this staid staple, much of which appears to have been composed in great haste and yet seems already somewhat dated, I am still not sure exactly what constitutes this Berlin Republic. Concentrating on the shift of the capital from sleepy Rhenish Bonn to Berlin seems ill-advised, for it is the Generationenwechsel of 1998 that really sets the nature of the German political and economic scene of today apart from the consensus-style Modell Deutschland of the postwar years. This change of guard marked the end of sixteen years of center-right coalitions and the stale Kohl era. With the Red-Green coalition, the generation of '68 came to power. To my mind this shift greatly overshadows any deceptive symbolism one might associate with the eastward move of Germany's capital.
Somewhat worryingly, the '68ers, represented by Chancellor Schroeder and Vice-Chancellor and Minister of Foreign Affairs Joshka Fischer, have unleashed three major trends since coming to power. The first is to pursue a more aggressive foreign policy, commonly in alliance with grosser Bruder in Washington. Schroeder himself refers to this in the foreword he contributes as being "willing to take on increased responsibility," at least "whenever necessary for the preservation of peace and human rights [...] as our partners rightly expect us to do." Of course, if anything, German foreign policy since 1998 smacks of the lack of responsibility. German warplanes, which under the Red-Green coalition returned to the night skies over Belgrade as part of illegal NATO air raids, are an eerie sight; they have turned Serbia into a basket case for decades to come and worsened the plight of those whom the raids were supposed to help, the Kosovo Albanians. Fischer justified this blatant violation of international law with his very own re-writing of German history. Auschwitz no longer bars the German military from being deployed abroad, he has suggested, but actually imposes the moral duty on German governments to do so, purportedly in the interest of human rights. As if this sort of statement were not Orwellian enough, worse was to come from the ranks of the Green Party. When Schroeder shrewdly turned the vote in favor of a German contribution to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 in the Bundestag into a vote of confidence for his government, the Greens did worse than simply cave in. "My yes," declared party icon Claudia Roth, "actually means no." War is peace. Winston Smith would have sympathized. Two years later, Afghanistan has been successfully bombed into oblivion, Taliban-inspired warlords have resumed power, the burka has re-imposed itself, and the U.S.-installed Karzai regime has problems even policing Kabul effectively, let alone creating anything resembling a democratic order and human rights. No doubt an outstanding success for the Red-Green efforts to contribute to "nation-building," Afghanistan is also a notable example of vorrauseilender Gehorsam. The German contribution to the campaign was offered ahead of any requests from the Bush regime. To volunteer troops to support one of the most belligerent postwar U.S. administrations even before being asked to do so appears difficult to justify using Fischer's own Auschwitz theory.
The powerful global wave of protest against the Bush regime's recent invasion of Iraq may have caused Schroeder to hesitate a bit before committing himself to new imperial adventures--with the benefit of hindsight probably a wise decision, given the electoral doom gathering over the heads of the more accommodating British and Spanish governments. It certainly helped sway his decision that a traditionally pro-U.S. people like the Germans started to realize exactly what "preventive intervention" entails. When Bush announced that his "patience was running out" in regards to Iraq, he mimicked the words of the German chancellor of 1938 who was becoming equally impatient with Czechoslovakia and held the League of Nations in similar disregard to that exhibited by Bush toward the United Nations.
The second major trend set in motion by the Red-Green government has to do with "pulling up the ladder behind them." 68ers, after all, were nursed in the generous bosom of the German welfare state, its free and highly regarded comprehensive schools and universities, its universal social assistance, and its formerly encompassing unemployment compensation. Schroeder is the child of a single mother who finished secondary school by taking night classes. Widened university access of the 1960s permitted him to gain a Goettingen law degree. Fischer dropped out of secondary school without obtaining an Abitur, calculating correctly that being seen at the right demonstrations would ultimately prove a better career move. Social mobility paid off well for this lot.
Yet it is precisely this age cohort of old lefties who have swallowed wholesale the Thatcherian rhetoric of the need for "structural reforms" of Germany's labor laws and social security system. They seek to cut unemployment and welfare eligibility, privatize the pension systems and health care provision, introduce university tuition fees, and lower corporate and high income taxes. Never mind that Germany's economic woes are largely a hangover of a bungled economic re-unification, involving "shock-style" economic therapy for the East. Or that the ill-conceived Maastricht "stability criteria" choke off the necessary levels of public expenditure. The mantra repeated by German business like a broken record ever since the Standortdebatte of the mid-1990s remains the same: deregulate, privatize, liberalize, cut wages, cut social expenditure. Globalization is thus portrayed as implying the need to compete with Bangladesh. Meanwhile, this array of neoliberal policies, referred to as the "Washington consensus," are attracting criticism worldwide. Voices of dissent are being heard even from within the very institutions that used to preach them, such as the IMF and the World Bank. Yet Germany's Social Democrats soldier on in the neoliberal spirit of the 1980s. Schroeder puts a populist spin on this message. "Nobody," he has declared, "has the right to sloth." Bone idle Fischer would have a fairly tough time, were he a youth these days.
A third development that has commenced under Red-Green, and is perhaps most troubling to historians, is linked to the first two. It concerns Germany's relationship with its troubled past. This past is now safely laid to rest. With this sort of official attitude vis-a-vis the Third Reich, it is perhaps less than surprising that recent political events indicate a rise in anti-semitism. Anti-semitism has abandoned the realm of subdued whispers and smoke-filled backrooms and has started to knock on the door of the bourgeois Wohnzimmer. Not every observer of German politics will necessarily agree with this statement, and some might dispute that anti-semitism is approaching being salonfaehig. After all, Berlin's new Jewish Museum offers an encompassing presentation of Jewish life in Germany, and demonstrates clearly just how substantial the Jewish contribution to German culture has been in the past. Fischer is a frequent and well-received visitor to Israel. Berlin proudly, if perhaps a bit too self-consciously, displays its synagogues and Jewish restaurants. But if we dig deeper, we stumble upon an unappealing whiff emitting from the latest Martin Walser novel, with its thinly disguised anti-semitic attacks on leading literature critic Reich-Ranicki. Even the conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung refused to print excerpts from Tod eines Kritikers, but that has not silenced Walser's laments about being victimized. Portraying oneself as the victim of political correctness run amok appears as an exit strategy for those who have deliberately played with the taboo of anti-semitism. Thus, the late Free Democrat Moellemann protested a bit too loudly when his deliberate attacks on Israel and German Jewish talk show host Friedmann were characterized as exactly such exercise in playing with the taboo subject. The real motivation to criticize Israel did not relate to Sharon's policies, but was fueled by seeking to chart the electoral potential for a German Haider. The debate over the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin's city center lasted a good two years. The memorial is being built. Due lip service has been paid. But since this past is now properly resigned to history books and concrete memorials, it can no longer interfere with current affairs and impose awkward questions: questions about a foreign policy of sword-rattling or troublesome domestic policies stigmatizing the "lazy" and forcing them to accept jobs at substandard wages.
These three trends charted here reveal that there are deeply worrying tenets amongst the so-called "spirit of the Berlin Republic." But the reader finds no evidence of these nagging difficulties. Instead, readers can expect platitudes along the following lines. Schroeder writes, "Globalization is a fact of life and the new Germany [...] must be ready to face the challenge of a growing [?] global economy and additional global [sic] responsibility" (p. 2, my addition in brackets). Or how about Hamilton's claim that "if Germany can help forge a new European defense cohesion [...], it will be easier for Americans to deal with Europe as a global partner" (p. 65)? We find a healthy dose of smug complacency about the "old Federal Republic's success story" (p. 22) and "the advantages of the Pax Americana" (p. 30). East Germany, to the extent it is mentioned at all, appears always as pure evil. Even Bush's America is somehow still regarded as a template, both for the "model of a multiethnic, transnational nation" (p. 32)--that America never was or is, of course--and its universities. This ideal involves, hideously, "alumni houses, [...] tuition, [...] academic teams, and [... a] university store in which to buy t-shirts with the university logo" (p. 105). One author reveals the following insight: "We do not know exactly what is going to happen" [with the Berlin Republic] (p. 47). But we would very much like to know, and that is why we read this book.
The essays reference political and cultural trends, but fail to provide original analysis. Whenever the authors endeavor simply to offer description, their political leanings appear immediately. They purport to describe and analyze the Berlin Republic's foreign, economic, social, and cultural policy, but actually they endorse, justify, defend, and promote the Red-Green government's policies. Given that the editor is an official of the Social Democratic main think tank, this might be less than surprising to some. However, regardless of political sympathies, the fact that this volume confuses analysis of politics with advocacy, at times verging on insidious propaganda, is irksome and only diminishes its potential. If we are to accept this book on its own terms--that is, as an endorsement of current German policies--some observers might wonder what happened to the Red-Green leftist credentials. Others might wonder why one ought to sympathize with Red-Green's Neue Mitte agenda. "New, new, new, everything is new," Tony Blair excitedly exclaimed when asked about his party's program that gave inspiration to Schroeder. But an aggressive foreign policy coupled with a regressive economic and social policy is hardly new, new, new. And old, old, old should always make observers of German politics feel a bit uneasy.
Beyond the bland policy statements for foreign policy (Klose) and economic policy (Staffelt) there are pieces that are just confused and inconsistent. For example, Thies seeks to sketch the "economic and social fabric," but descends quickly into pure neoliberal ideology: "The hard reality is that Germany is not doing enough to deregulate the labor market" (p. 88), since it has not followed the "path of reform, which countries such as the United Kingdom" (p. 88) have taken. In his view, rock bottom wages in the East are thus acceptable (p. 89). Yet only two pages later, Thies exclaims "the state must intervene. Otherwise, the imbalance between the [...] West and East will grow" (p. 91).
The volume's quality is not improved by including policy wonks explicit about their sympathies for the Bush government. In his chapter about the "Berlin Republic in a Global Age," Hamilton inquires "can Germany go global" (p. 69). This question is not only indicative of the unfortunate Beltway-style of English employed. In purporting to provide an answer as to whether Germany will "take over responsibility" (p. 69), the chapter rapidly moves away from analysis towards policy advocacy. Berlin is advised to follow the roguish policies of the Bush junta. Brushing aside legitimate concerns over a bellicose foreign policy in light of Germany's colorful past, Hamilton admonishes not to let a reticent public stand in the way of "going global," as that would mean pandering to "populism" (p. 59). This low regard for public opinion and the verdict of the voter seems more reflective of certain political groupings in the United States than useful in an analysis of German politics. "Still reticent after all these years," he teases his German counterparts (p. 62). Just in case they might be, he constructs paranoid scenarios that seem to involve a cross-over of Rumsfeldian politics and Disney-style imagery. "How about an aircraft taking off from Paris and crashing into the Deutsche Bank tower in Frankfurt" (p. 66)? This alarmist invitation to a more aggressive foreign policy is once again delivered hand in hand with some Thatcherite economic advice.
Tackling "serious structural rigidities" (p. 71) needs to be a second policy priority for the Berlin Republic. The only interesting--if indicative--sentence in this essay is the following question: "Will Americans have either the patience or the inclination to assemble--or be part of--multilateral coalition in response to globalization's challenges" (p. 67).
When policy advocacy meets pseudo-intellectualism, the ugly offspring can be quite irritating. Germany has no great young writers, Glotz whines. German universities need tuition fees, he insinuates. Could this be another member of the Schroeder generation wanting to pull up the ladder behind him? The reasoning behind this policy demand is rather perplexing. Glotz claims that "the student elite" is attracted not by regional German universities, but by U.S. ivy-league institutions. Hildesheim, the author helpfully reminds us, is not Stanford. It is not just the t-shirt shops, it is also the fact that in the United States there is a "working fluctuation" from one "elite" to another (p. 107). Henceforth, there is room for interchange between Cambridge and Washington. This has worked well for "people on the ideological cutting edge" (p. 107). Examples cited for the cutting edge include controversial figures such as Kissinger and Brzezinski who played leading roles in covert assassinations of elected foreign leaders and inciting genocidal civil wars. In the United States, this type of "fluctuating elite" teaches the "student elite," meanwhile in Germany, private universities "have to make decisions in accordance with complicated democratic regulations that prevent them from reacting quickly to new developments in society" (p. 105). Clearly, the preferred solution for Germany implied here is less democracy and more Kissinger.
Tempting though it may be, it would be too easy to dismiss these ideas as the confused ramblings of yet another latter-day disciple of Friedrich Hayek. German universities are indeed under-funded, their buildings crumbling, and young bright German academics are abandoning the country. Indeed, discussions about a Hochschulreform have been underway for the past thirty years. Yet the solution suggested here is suspect. Tuition fees and yet more Americanization cannot serve as a panacea. A better solution would be federal, rather than state, funding for universities. Why is asking for an end to the feudal relationship between German professors and their young assistants, and for merit-based hiring policies asking too much? But in staying clear of such innovative proposals, Glotz, a former state minister of education of West Berlin, does not simply display lack of imagination. What appears more worrisome is the cavalier disregard for social equality and for widening access to tertiary education. In abandoning such classic Social Democratic positions in favor of blind fascination with the market-driven U.S. model, he epitomizes the rightward shift of the Red-Green government. If the drive to keep the masses away from university campuses and return to an elitist model of education for few appears politically questionable, the blind fascination with U.S. universities seems plain naïve. Average annual tuition fees even at state universities now routinely exceed $10,000, imposing a significant burden if not barrier to access. With the uncritical admiration for institutions like Harvard comes oblivion to the fact that most American students attend regional state universities, against which most German universities do not compare unfavorably. Descending to the level of arguments employed here, one might point out that Northeastern Missouri State University is not Heidelberg.
German literature meanwhile, is chastised for being "hard to comprehend, unsuitable for the larger public, nearly impossible to translate, formally ambitious" (p. 101). A certain former German minister of culture might have phrased it more succinctly, in calling it entartet (degenerate). Having promoted elitist universities, Glotz suddenly shifts gear and embraces folksy novels that are commercial success stories. Next, the author descends on the streets, looking for the Berlin "school." But he cannot find it, and neither does the city have much of a nightlife or an underground scene, according to his description. Where is the new Boell? There are a few young German authors, Glotz concedes, citing the tiresome Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre, but they have not produced a "paradigm." Nor do they all live in Berlin. Hence there can be no Berlin paradigm or school, Professor Glotz reckons. Few readers familiar with Berlin's reputation as offering a vibrant nightlife and a plethora of diverse cultural attractions, despite attempts by local authorities to clean up the city and sterilize it, will identify with the picture painted here. Though I am not a connoisseur of young German literature, I am confident that it can only exceed the level of literary criticism offered here.
In sum, this book is, unfortunately, a real disappointment. It is vacuous. Its mission is ambitious, yet it never ventures far beyond cliches and platitudes. Not only its politics are disturbing and at times outright menacing. Its biggest flaw is the utter lack of originality. Those interested in a thorough analysis or even an interesting sketch of the Berlin Republic will look elsewhere. It is difficult to blame them.
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Citation:
Georg Menz. Review of Dettke, Dieter, ed., The Spirit of the Berlin Republic.
H-German, H-Net Reviews.
January, 2004.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=8637
Copyright © 2004 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For any other proposed use, contact the Reviews editorial staff at hbooks@mail.h-net.org.