The Washington Monthly

February 12, 2003

STEPHEN GREEN HATES GERMANY TOO....ARE THERE ANY EUROPEANS LEFT THAT HE DOES LIKE?....Stephen Green says:

Coming of political age during the ’80s, I loved and respected Germany. I’d read of Konrad Adenauer and his successful efforts to integrate West Germany fully into western Europe, creating a peaceful state that was nevertheless willing to defend itself against Soviet Russia. I watched on the news as Helmut Kohl stared down his own country’s pacifists to help the US in the post-détente era. I wept tears of joy and shock when the Wall came down, and I wept again – tears of pure joy – when the Two Germanies were finally reunified. At last, I thought, a good people are whole again, and wholly part of this glorious thing we call the Western World.

But now I’m beginning to think that Adenauer and Kohl were aberrations – leaders who not only remembered firsthand the horror and fear of Hitler’s Germany, but were brought up under America’s tutelage. Lessons, I might add, taught at the cost of hundreds of thousands of American lives. Is what we’re seeing now simply Germany going back to being, well, goddamn German?

Let me translate: I really liked Germany when they did everything we wanted them to, but now that they don't, "There is something sick and wrong and not-so-buried at the heart of the German culture." At least we're clear about what it takes to be considered a proper country.

And on another subject: how many people believe that Stephen really "wept tears of pure joy" when Germany was reunited?

—Kevin Drum 5:44 PM Permalink | Trackbacks

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