Germany has always been the
problem child of Europe. For over a
millennium it was no more than a
loose confederation of separate
states and territories, whose number
at times topped the thousand mark.
When unification belatedly came
about in 1871, it was achieved
almost exclusively by military
might; as a direct result of this,
the new nation was consumed by a
thirst for power and expansion
abroad. Defeat in World War I only
led to a desire for revenge, the
consequence of which was the Third
Reich, a regime bent on mass
genocide and an European, indeed
world, domination. It took another
tragic global war to crush this
system and its people. When the
victors quarrelled over how to
prevent Germany ever again becoming
dominant, they divided it into two
hostile states; the parts held by
the Western powers were developed
into the
Federal Republic of
Germany , while the eastern zone
occupied by the Soviets became the
German
Democratic Republic.
The contest between the two was
an unequal one - the GDR, never able
to break free from being a client
state of the Soviet Union and forced
to adopt a Communist system at odds
with the national character, had
fallen so far behind its rival in
living standards that in 1961 the
authorities constructed electrified
barbed-wire frontier, with the Berlin
Wall as its lynchpn, to halt
emigration - the first time in the
history of the world that a
fortification system had been
erected by a regime against its own
people. Thereafter, the society
settled down, but the GDR was a grey,
cheerless place whose much trumpeted
economic success was a mirage, and
bought at the price of terrible
pollution problems.
On the other hand, the Federal
Republic - which was seen as the
natural successor to the old Reich,
if only on account of its size - had
not only picked itself up by the
boot-straps, but developed into what
many outsiders regarded as a model
modern society . A nation with
little in the way of a liberal
tradition, and even less of a
democratic one, quickly developed a
degree of political maturity that
put other countries to shame. In
atonement for past sins, the new
state committed itself to providing
a haven for foreign refugees and
dissidents. It also became a
multiracial and multicultural
society - even if the reason for
this was less one of penance than
the self-interested need to acquire
extra cheap labour to fuel the
economic boom. A delicate balance
was struck between the old and the
new. Historic town centres were
immaculately restored, while the
corporate skyscrapers and
well-stocked department stores
represented a commitment to a modern
consume society. Vast sums of money
were lavished on preserving the best
of the country cultural legacy, yet
equally generous budgets were
allocated to encouraging all kinds
of contemporary expression in the
arts.
Officially, the Federal Republic
was always a "provisional"
state, biding its time before
national reunification occurred. Yet
there was a realization that nobody
outside Germany was really much in
favour of this. "I love Germany
so much I'm glad there are two of
them", scoffed the French
novelist François Mauriac,
articulating the unspoken gut
reactions of the powers on both
sides of the Iron Curtain. German
division may have been cruel, but at
least it had provided a lasting
solution to the German
"problem". Such thinking
was rendered obsolete by the
unstoppable momentum of events in
the wake of the Wende , the
peaceful revolution that toppled the
Communist regime in the GDR in 1989,
leading to the full union of the two
Germanys less than a year later. Yet
initial euphoria has been quickly
replaced by concern about the myriad
problems facing the new nation as it
attempts to integrate the bankrupt
social and economic system of the
GDR into the successful framework of
the Federal Republic. While Germany
may officially be one again, it will
certainly continue to look and feel
like two separate countries until
the end of the century - and
probably well beyond. Moreover,
international pressure had ensured
that, far from being a re-creation
of the old Reich, it can be no more
than the nineteenth-century concept
of a Kleines Deutschland
("little Germany"),
excluding not only Austria but also
the "lost" Eastern
Territories, which are now part of
Poland, the Czech Republic and the
Russian Federation.
In total contrast to Germany's
intristic fascination as the country
which has played such a determining
role in the history of the twentieth
century is its otherwise
predominantly romantic image
. This is the land of fairy-tale
castles, of thick dark forests, of
the legends collected by the
Brothers Grimm, of perfectly
preserved timber-framed medieval
towns, and of jovial locals swilling
from huge foaming mugs of beer. As
always, there is some truth
in these stereotypes, though most of
them stem from the southern part of
the country, particularly Bavaria
, which, as a predominantly rural
and Catholic area, stands apart from
the urbanized Protestant north which
engineered the unity of the nation
last century and thereafter
dominated its affairs.
Regional characteristics ,
indeed, are a strong feature of
German life, and there are many
hangovers from the days when the
country was a political patchwork,
even though some historical
provinces have vanished from the map
and others have merged. Hamburg
and Bremen , for example,
retain their age-old status as free
cities. The imperial capital, Berlin
, also stands apart, as an island in
the midst of the erstwhile GDR where
the liberalism of the West was
pushed to its extreme, sometimes
decadent, always exciting. In polar
opposition to it, and as a
corrective to the normal view of the
Germans as an essentially serious
race, is the Rhineland ,
where the great river's majestic
sweep has spawned a particularly
rich fund of legends and folklore,
and where the locals are imbued with
a Mediterranean-type sense of fun.
The five new Länder which
have supplanted the GDR, and in
particular the small towns and rural
areas, are in many ways the ones
which best encapsulate the feel and
appearance of Germany as it was
before the war and the onset of
foriegn influences which were an
inevitable consequence of defeat.
