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wonder a generalized German reac–
tion to the Bitburg controversy
was, "Have these past 40
different
years all been in vain?" Alfred
Dregger, one of the most senior
members of the Christian Demo–
cratic Party, said, "Bitburg raises
the question of whether the Ameri–
can people really consider us to be
allies, despite 40 years."
The Past l s Open
lt
would be a grave mistake to
believe, as apparently sorne still do,
that the events of the time of
national socialism are sti ll not ade–
quately examined in today's Ger–
many-at least in the western Fed–
eral Republic.
The author was in Germany cov–
ering this year's economic summit
and the events of President Rea–
gan's state visit. During this period
of time, coinciding with the 40th
anniversary of the end of the Sec–
ond World War in Europe, West
German television networks pre–
sented many programs detai ling the
events at the close of World War
11. l observed a fascinating panora–
ma of photographs in the Hamburg
city-state office in the nation's cap–
ital, Bonn. T hese represented a
detai led account of the slave labor
system employed by certain Ger–
man industries during the war.
And in France, at the time of
President Reagan's May 8 address to
the European Parliament in Stras–
bourg, 1 visited the only German
concentration camp on French soil.
It
was built at Struthof, across the
Alsatian plain from Strasbourg, on a
peak high in the Vosges mountains.
The small but g rim Struthof
facility is one of the better pre–
served camps. What struck me
most, however, was that near the
end of the day, a bus load of elderly
German tourists, most of them
women, carne to tour the facility.
They were of the very generat ion
that lived through the grim days of
the l930s and '40s. They carne to
Struthof to see for tbemselves what
had transpired under Nazi rule.
With Prosperity, Confusion
Not long ago a book was written
entitled
The Fourth and Richest
Reich.
Its pages chronicled the rise
of the Federal Republic-which
constitutes only the Western half of
4
prewar Germany-to the leve! of
an economic superpower.
Still, despite unprecedented pros–
perity, many West Germans have a
sense of national unfulfillment. They
have had to shed patriotic feelings
that would be normal in other coun–
tries simply because patriotism and
nationalism had been so abused
under national socialism.
German news sources acknowl–
edge this sense of national ennui. A
1983 commentary in the Hamburg
weekly
Die Zeit
reported: "The Fed–
eral Republic is, all things consid–
ered, not a bad country, perhaps
even the best ever to rise from Ger–
man soil. But wbo likes to feel them–
selves as
F~deral
Republicans?"
Since coming to power in 1982,
Chancellor Kohl has cautiously
tried to stimulate feelings of
national pride and patriotism. He is
the first West German chancellor
to display the nationa1 flag in his
office. He has even resuscitated
previously tainted words such as
Vater/and.
So far, response by his country–
men to the chancellor's pride-build–
ing efforts has been lukewarm.
Julian Crandall Hollick, a writer
and frequent visitor to West Ger–
many, took note in the August 8,
1984,
Christian Science Monitor
of what he called West Germany's
"midlife identity crisis."
"Ask a young American what
being an American means and you
will . most likely receive a clear and
confident reply. Ask a young West
German and the answer \\<ill be at
best unclear, at worst an ·embar–
rassed refusal. ... What does being
West German mean? Who are its
he roes? What is the Federal
Republic's history?"
Generation Gap
With West Germany's maturing
there has also developed a genera–
tion gap peculiar to the country.
Older generation Germans vivid–
ly recall the early grim postwar
years, the stimulus to the rebui ld–
ing of the country provided by the
U.S Marshall Plan and the Berlín
air lift that defeated the Soviet
attempt to force the Westero
powers out of the city.
They lived through the period of
time when Chancellor Konrad
Adenauer anchored the ftedgling
Federal Republic in the Western
Alliance system, resisting the siren
cal! of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin,
who offered German reunification
in return fo r neutrality.
Through the 1950s and ' 60s
West Germany was rebuilt a good
deal along the at-that-time highly
favored American model.
Younger West Germans today,
especially those politically left-of–
center, increasingly resent the
Americanization of their society.
They are searching out their pre–
Nazi era national roots for some–
thing more authentic. Increasingly
they find, on trips to East Germa–
ny, that the German Democratic
Republic (DDR) seems more tradi–
tionally German. This is especially
true in recent years as the authori–
ties in the DDR bave cautiously
restored public mon uments and
statues of selected great figures of
Germany's past, such as Frederick
the Great and even the Iron Chan–
cellor, Otto von Bismarck.
European Community Not Enough
Wüh patriotism and pure nationa1-
ism so highly suspect, West Ger–
mans have sought elsewhere for
their outlets. Franz Josef Strauss
once said that "we must have
patriotism in an entirely new
understanding of the word. "
For a long while it was believed
by Germans as well as their neigh–
bors that the construction of the
European Community in demo–
cratic Europe would sufficiently
occupy the talents and energies of
the·German people.
The European Community,
more commonly referred to by its
economic component, the Common
Market , did engage the Germans as
long as it was ' 'core Europe,"
essentially the six original mem–
bers- Germany, France, ltaly and
the Benelux nations.
The EC now has become too
unwieldy, however. Member states
such as Britain and Denmark act
more as brakes , throttling the
dream of creating a truly confeder–
ated European power. Greece
remains an enigma. Incoming new
member states such as Spain and
Portugal create new problems,
from agricultura! surpluses to the
burdeos of requiring all EC docu-
(Continued on page 40)
The
PLAIN TRUTH