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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JULY 8, 1983
The Europeans (Conclusion)
PAGE 10
Three weeks ago, we presented excerpts from Luigi Barzini's book, THE
EUROPEANS, in particular his comments concerning the British, the French
and the Dutch. The "Flexible Italians" and the "Baffling Americans" also
get the Barzini treatment.
Time and space simply do not permit encapsulating the author's intriguing
accounts concerning the above two peoples. His observations concerning
"The Mutable Germans" deserve some treatment however.
The Germans are
mutable, says Barzini, because they are a people, who despite a constancy
of German national characteristics, called Deutschtum, can nevertheless
superficially change more than most peoples. He begins this chapter by
saying:
The future of Europe appears largely to depend today once again,
for good or evil, whether we like it or not, as it did for many
centuries, on the future of Germany. It is still, as Madame de
Stael wrote, "le coeur de l'Europe" (the heart of Europe).
Destroyed, defeated, humiliated, arbitrarily reshaped according
to angry and frightened foreigners' punitive ideas.••it has be
come once again the richest, strongest, most efficient, orderly,
productive, scientifically and technologically advanced, as well
as the most populous nation of western Europe. In prosperous
years, it is the first up; in lean years, the last down (and not
all that much down). Italy is too tired, skeptical, unruly, and
confused to count. Victorious Great Britain has seen its arro
gant pride fade away along with its wealth, power, and prestige.
France, of course, firmly and loudly proclaims itself Number One,
but too firmly and too loudly at times.
It is therefore once again essential for everybody, the French,
the British, the Italians, the other Europeans, as well as the
Americans and the Soviets, to keep an eye across the Rhine and
the Alps and the Elbe in order to figure out, as our fathers,
grandfathers, great-grandfathers, the ancient Romans, and remote
ancestors had to do, who the Germans are, who they think they
are, what they are doing, and where they will go next, wittingly
or unwittingly.
This, of course, was always impossible to
fathom. How can one tell? Germany is a trompe l'oeil [bluff or
deception) Protean country. As everybody knows, only when one
tied down Proteus, the prophetic old man of the sea, could one
make him reveal the shape of things to come. But he couldn't be
pinned down easily; he continued to change. He could be a roar
ing lion, a harmless sheep, a slippery serpent, a charging bull,
or in turn, a rock, a tree, a brook, a bonfire.
Author Barzini has always been amazed at the ability of the Germans to adapt
to foreign styles ("their blottingpaper capacity to absorb and improve
alien conceptions," he says) while still retaining a distinctive Deutsch
tum. The post-World War II copy-model has, of course, been the United
States. This is not surprising, Barzini notes, since nations at all times
have adopted the customs, fashions, and ideas of the predominant power of
the era, especially a conquering one. But what about the Russian view of
this problem country? The Russians, for their part, both greatly respect
and fear the Germans. To continue: