German confidence masking a sharp identity crisis

Press, 4 February 1982, Page 17

German confidence masking a sharp identity crisis

When the former Secretary of State. Henry Kissinger, writes about “European fecklessness” in relation to Poland (as he did last week in his “New York Times" attack on Reagan’s inadequate foreign policy) there is little doubt in Bonn as to which European government he has in mind.

can be properly understood without the realisation that West Germany is still almost morbidly unsure of itself. The cocky self-confidence of Helmut Schmidt, an experienced politician — which in itself has already tested to breaking point relations with two American Presidents — gives an entirely WTong impression of the underlying strains in West German society and politics.

this has convinced today's citizens of the Federal Republic . that they live in a securely stable democracy with a'sound future.

The extent and depth of the anti-West German comment .in American political and press circles in these last few weeks has shaken the Bonn establishment seriously. And at different points in the political spectrum this jolt has produced different reactions.

In a country like the United Kingdom, the permanent news that the country is for ever going yet more rapidly to the dogs has been such a’standard part of newspaper reporting and television comment for so many decades (even perhaps centuries) that the British know instinctively that there is a lot of ruin in a country.

On the Left, the fact that the Reagan Administration cannot understand that events in Poland (for historical and geographical reasons) are bound to’ produce a different gut reaction in Middleburg, West Germany. to that evoked in Midtown, United States, is an argument in favour of neutralism as the only hope.. On the Right, the Polish crisis has provided an opportunity to attack Chancellor Schmidt for his failure to defend the national interest. Thus Dr Helmut Kohl and his Christian Democrats chose to depart from the previous bipartisan line on Poland in the Bundestag debate last month, launching what by German standards was a relatively savage and personalised attack on the Chancellor. None of these reactions

tAll the material prosperity f the last three decades — he all-powerful Deutschmark. the industrial and trading successes — none of

The Federal Republic, however, is like a patient still gingerly going through life after recovering from a complete nervous breakdown. There is no assumption that its institutions, which have only a post-war history and tradition, would be able to withstand serious or prolonged strain. The shock to the West German system from Poland is the greater now because it comes at the same time as the two other bulwarks of the post-war system are being undermined. Faith in the institutions of democracy has been massively underpinned by the performance of the German economy — the great economic miracle presided over, in its first phase, by Chancellor Adenauer with Ludwig Erhard

Bonn has staked much on the European ideal — including a nation’s future, HUGH STEPHENSON, of the London “Guardian,” reports on the strains for Chancellor Schmidt.

as his economics minister and eventual successor. By the standards of other industrial countries, things have still not gone seriously wrong. Unemployment has not yet reached two million. Inflation is w r ell below the European average. But in the German context this is not the political or psychological point. The “Wirtshaftswunder" had become such a part of modern Germany's perception of itself — something of which it could be uncomplicatedly proud: something of which others were so obviously and pleasingly jealous — that its ending has a significance far above that of a serious recession in some other country. A weak mark, high interest rates, balance of payments constraints on expansion, a . desperate energy crisis with no security of supply — these are all unnervingly new experiences for a child' of post-war Germany.

A prosperous economy went hand in hand with steadily competent, if decidedly legalistic, government and administration. Here too, though, today’s West German is worried that all is not well. The Federal budget is in great disarray, with exploding deficits and high Government borrowing. The

present political situation feels-to most West Germans to be distinctly unstable. For Chancellor Schmidt is in one sense heading a minority government.

Despite the liability of having Mr Strauss as its candidate; the conservative C.D.U./C.S.U. union got almost 49 per cent of the vote at rhe last general election and was by far the biggest party. The combination of proportional representation and power-broking politics has kept the conservatives out of office in a way which feels unsatisfactory (juding by the opinion polls) to rather more than half of West German voters. Further, by the autumn as a result of provincial elections (most importantly in Hamburg and Hesse), the conservative opposition could well have the two-thirds majority in the Upper House which gives it the constitutional power to block important parts of the Government's legislative programme. Constitutional uncertainties of this kind are meat and drink in the lobbies. say. of Westminster. They are’ still very unsettling to public opinion in the Federal Republic.

But by far the most important erosion of certainty has been in West Germany’s

relation to N.A.T.O. to the European Community, and to the West in general. It was central to Adenauer’s strategy for the reconstruction of post-war Germany that it should renounce tor the foreseeable future any aspirations for the reunification of the two halves of the country.

Instead, national pride was to be sublimated in a genuine commitment to European integration and the N.A.T.O. alliance. So long as these groupings appeared to be a valid repository for W'est German hopes and ambitions. conventional nationalism or concern for sovereignty were not a significant German issue. In the 1960 s the fear was that an increasingly isolationist United States would uncouple from Europe. Now the fear is that an increasingly disillusioned Europe may uncouple from the United States. For a West German, that process would raise questions about the future status of his split country that would be far more acute even than for a Briton or a Frenchman. The state of the Common Market is equally distressing for West Germany. The deal in West German' eyes was always that they were prepared to pick up'a large part of the tab for the grubby part of the enterprise — the agricultural policy, the bureaucracy, and the rest — so long as that was the price to pay for keeping in being a

' European institution with a vision of a different and integrated Europe to which it was advancing. “Every deutschmark spent on Europe is a prudent investment in our future." they used to say. Now they are acutely aware that the vision and th’e momentum have gone. There is. as a result, growing opposition at having to shell out for the rest. "If there is no major step forward'- towards European integration in the next 10 years., mere is severe doubt whether‘the constitution of the Federal Republic will still be there in year 2000." Such is .the much' more desperate ione even of proEuropean comment these days. This is not just a dramatic figure oi speech. West Ger-

many today is becoming uncomfortably aware that East Germany (in a way that no one would have expected) is establishing a claim to be the main legitimate inheritor of the historic spirit of the German nation. Small symbols illustrate the point.' Karl von Clausewitz is usually acknowledged as the greatest German soldierphilosopher. The bicentenary of his birth fell in 1980. It was the cause of a month of official commemoration in East Germany, where a brigade of the People's Army was named after him. In denationalised, anti-militaris-tic. West Germany the date passed without official recognition. Or again, 1983 is the 500th anniversary of the birth of

Luther. The constitution of the .German Democratic Republic lays down explicitly that it is an atheistic state. Yet massive preparations are in train in order to ensure tha this great German's memory is recognised as part of East Germany's “national" heritage. And the chairman of the committee co-ordinating the activity is, of course, Mr Honecker, the East German leader. This is the common background of the new and uncomfortable uncertainty against which West Germany of every persuasion are reassessing their positions. For Dr'Kohl and the C.D.U. the response is a strong recommitment to the N.A.T.O. alliance, to Ameri-

can leadership of the West, and to European integration. And. with varying degrees of enthusiasm across the rest of the political spectrum, there is a desperate anxiety to keep open lines of communication with the East and to Moscow. When President Brezhnev was in Bonn recently he was heard warning people that they should look out. or they might end up left in the lurch by the Americans, as they left their South Vietnamese' friends. If you sit in Bonn and are old enough to remember when Berlin was your capital city and Prussia dominated your country, such remarks make you stop and think for a moment.