...that I once got to sit in Willy Brandt's chair in the Bundestag? I was a very very thrilled young nerd.
Mrs. Tilton at A Fistful of Euros has written a great post on the proposed end to conscription in Germany. Best of all, she called Renate Schmidt "Minister for Puppies and Sad-Eyed Children (or something like that)." Hi-larious.
But really: the end of Wehrdienst and, with it, Zivildienst, could spell a real problem for social services in Germany. Mrs. T. points out that the country's dependence on the cheap labor in the Kindergarten and Pflegeheim sector provided by Zivis has kept military conscription in place, not as you (I) might have expected, the other way around. Huh.
I bet it will also pose a problem by eliminating that year or so of time "off" before kids go into Ausbildungsplätze--themselves few and far between anymore. The Süddeutsche reports that in 2003 there were 231.000 high school graduates and 83.500 open Lehrstellen for them to fill. I assume that some of this slack is taken up each year, or at least delayed, by people doing their Zivi or Bundi stint.
Christian Staas at Die Zeit writes about "defending the past" online. Staas reviews the online debate recently brought to life (again) by the Hohmann controversy:
Im Mittelpunkt stehen...fast immer Vergleiche: So gehen wir Deutsche mit unserer Vergangenheit um, so die Amerikaner; hier waren die Deutschen Täter, hier sind es die Israelis, waren es die Polen oder Tschechen. Es ist müßig, zu erklären, woran solche Vergleiche kränken. Tatsache ist, dass sie auf nationale Denkmuster zurückwirken, durch die sie überhaupt erst sichtbar werden. Dahinter kommt, meist unausgesprochen, der Wunsch nach „Normalität“ zum Vorschein... Historikerstreit, Goldhagen und Martin Walsers Friedenspreis-Rede von 1998 – alles ist drin, alles reichlich verdünnt und alles durcheinander. Dem Ganzen fehlt lediglich der rhetorische Feinschliff. Polemik und Rechthaberei gibt es dafür mehr als genug.In these discussions, Staas sees evidence of an erosion of consensus surrounding one of the most important ideas of the postwar West (his "Germany" is understood to be the Federal Republic):
Wer hingegen darauf beharrt, dass der Holocaust der zentrale Bezugspunkt eines selbstkritischen deutschen Selbstverständnisses bleiben muss, sieht sich rasch mit dem Vorwurf konfrontiert, er argumentiere auf der Grundlage eines rassistischen Volksbegriffs. Was jahrzehntelang als intellektueller Grundkonsens der Bundesrepublik galt, ist in den Online-Foren kaum noch konsensfähig. Die meisten wittern hinter der Überzeugung, es gebe eine spezifisch deutsche Verantwortung im Umgang mit dem Nationalsozialismus, eine moralisch verwerfliche Vorverurteilung, die alle Deutschen von Geburt an schuldig spricht.
So: to what extent do these speakers ("wahrscheinlich überdurchschnittlich informiert, in der Regel männlich, zwischen 25 und 40 Jahre alt") represent the rest of German public opinion?
for an English translation (corrections welcomed),
Comparisons are nearly always at the center [of these discussions]: this is how we Germans deal with our past, the Americans do it this way; the Germans were perpetrators in this case, in this one it's the Israelis, or [in the past] the Poles or the Czechs. It's futile to try to explain why these comparisons are insulting. The fact is that they are retroactively tied to the same national thought patterns through which they became visible in the first place. Then the (generally unspoken) desire for "normality" comes to the fore...Historikerstreit, Goldhagen, and Martin Walser's Peace prize speech from 1998 – everything's included, considerably diluted, and all mixed up. The only thing missing is a rhetorical edge. But there's already plenty of polemics and dogmatism.
...
But anyone who insists that the Holocaust must remain the central point of reference for a self-critical German self-image finds himself quickly accused of arguing on the basis of a racist national definition. What for decades was considered the foundation of intellectual consensus of the Federal Republic is barely able to garner agreement in the online fora. Most rage against the suggestion that there is a specific German responsibility towards National Socialism, [which they see as] a morally reprehensible presumptive condemnation that declares all Germans, from birth on, to be guilty.
This German MP (story at the BBC) recently made the news for a speech he delivered in which he made certain claims about the historical guilt of the Germans. I don't want to get into it too much here, but while reading the text of the speech at Mehrzweckbeutel my jaw dropped lower and lower. Just one of his many remarkably ugly tactics is to justify Nazi crimes by comparing them to revolutionary bolshevist Jews in the 20s. I can't fully express my disgust until I read some more about how this story is unfolding.
Luckily,Mehrzweckbeutel posted a copy of the speech, which has since been removed from the local CDU website...
[but is apparently to be found in multiple places online]
Bernd Ulrich at die Zeit tries to understand the recent popularization of the past in Germany. Is Wortmann's Das Wunder von Bern, like Sonnenallee and Goodbye Lenin, evidence that Germans (chiefly West Germans) are finally "growing up" in their attitudes towards history? [There's more to it than that.]
Heute haben die meisten lebenden Deutschen sich persönlich nichts mehr vorzuwerfen, und sie finden auch kaum noch jemanden, dem man persönlich etwas vorwerfen könnte. Darum stünde so oder so die Verwandlung von persönlicher Schuld in politisch-historische Verantwortung an. Ein heikler Prozess, in dem das Gefühl für das Grauen und für die Gefährdung verloren gehen kann. Nun kommt, historisch zufällig, noch etwas Zweites hinzu: Da die Ökonomie labil wird, suchen die Deutschen neue Identitätsanker, nicht zuletzt in der Historie. Daraus ergibt sich leicht eine Tendenz zur Verkitschung, Verharmlosung, Verflachung. Geschichte, wo man gerne hingeht.
Just for fun: here's how Google translated a larger exerpt, including that same paragraph:
The Germans were with one another reconciled never as as today, and which is, in order to come on the dangers, naturally also delicately. That today still another revisionism did not threaten à la Ernst Nolte or also only before daring courage of trembling Neonationalismus à la Martin Walser. Nobody would come on the idea to explain the Gulag to the Prius from Auschwitz to or to charge the German complicity with German suffering or to explain also only Versailles as the actual place of birth of the Second World War. No, this reconciliation does not need displacing. The danger sees 21 at the beginning. Century differently out: Today most living Germans have to accuse themselves personally nothing more, and they find also hardly still someone, to which one could accuse personally something. Therefore in such a way or so the conversion of personal debt into political-historical responsibility would stand on. A delicate process, in which the feeling for the grey and for the endangerment can be lost. Now, historically coincidentally, still somewhat second is added: Since the economics becomes unstable, the Germans look for new identity anchor, not least in history. From it easily a tendency results to the Verkitschung, minimization, flattening. History, where one goes gladly.
My final thought for today: Albrecht Gehse has painted Helmut Kohl's portrait, "wohl wissend," says the BZ, "dass dieser Kanzler a.D. der deutschen Einheit und Vater der europäischen Verbündung in kein zeitgenössisches Medienformat passen würde."
Ugh! Poor Gehse. Lucky Helmut. So much could be said about an East German artist depicting THE West German chancellor überhaupt, but I won't do it now.
If only someone would publish the image!! Anyone want to sneak in there and take a snap for me?
Here's the painting. and here is der Spiegel's coverage. I had to chuckle: the author writes:
Fast alterslos wirkt er darauf, mit listigen, warmen Elefantenaugen. Und fast schwerelos. Denn das, was Christoph Stölzl sehr charmant als "karolingische Statur" beschrieb, die Kohl'schen körperlichen Ausmaße nämlich, ist in dem Bild nur sehr dezent angedeutet.
Charlemagne is rolling right now.
