March 2020 ISSN 1864-3973

ARTWORK: GT/JOHANNA TRAPP

IN THIS ISSUE

A special section marking three-quarters Nation unbuilding Party crashing of a century of peace, including German President Frank-Walter Europe and the US have failed in Syria Angela Merkel’s CDU is in disarray Steinmeier’s historic speech at Yad Vashem. Syria’s pseudo-socialist, neo-capitalist CDU party leadership at the federal level Pages 11 - 15 BY KRISTIN HELBERG economic system has engendered a sym- BY PETER H. KOEPF remains steadfast, insisting that both biosis of entrepreneurs and regime rep- options are out of the question. In other fter almost nine years of civil war, resentatives. More specifically, the liber- mmediately following this year’s words, the party is sorely lacking a com- World series the crisis in and around Syria has alization driven by Assad paired with the Munich Security Conference, Stefan pass. Graham Allison and Joseph not been resolved. Nonetheless, war economy of the past few years has Kornelius, a commentator for the In the wake of this embarrassment, the Nye have different takes on A I it is clear who the winners and losers created a merger of wealth and political- Süddeutsche Zeitung, reflected a growing CDU’s poll numbers have gone from bad how the West should con- in the conflict are. Among the winners power structures. Crony capitalists loyal to concern felt by observers of Germany to catastrophic. The federal party leader front China. Ian Bremmer are the Syrian regime, Russia, Iran and the regime benefit from the privatization of and many conference attendees regarding had to resign and the party seems to be and Robert Malley explain even Turkey, to a certain extent. These public property, from smuggling and from the political situation in Germany: “Is the breaking up into a Christian-liberal fac- the West’s tensions with countries have always known what they monopolies in the service sector. In other anchor of Europe, the lighthouse of free- tion and a so-called conservative wing – Iran and Russia. wanted, have proven ready to do anything words, power and money are bound to each dom, the savior of the West on the verge the latter comprising those who, just like Pages 6 - 9 to get what they want, and have been able other in modern Syria. This fact should be of becoming a new Trumpistan?” the AfD, reject Merkel’s liberal politics, to adapt their strategies to the dynam- borne in mind when it comes to handing Some spoke of what they saw as Wei- particularly with regard to the environ- Trade deadline ics of the war. Among the losers are the out humanitarian aid and supporting recon- mar-era conditions on the horizon, that ment, refugees and gender policies. Donald Trump predicted United States and Europe, who champi- struction efforts there. is, a further fragmentation of the party Today, the number of voices insisting he would win so many oned the desires of Syrians citizens for a While entire regions of Syria remain in system similar to what occurred in Ger- that Angela Merkel should be held respon- trade deals, his followers life of freedom and dignity but did so in ruin, the Syrian pound continues to lose many between 1919 and 1933. Following sible for this misery is on the rise. Calls might get bored. Alexander a half-hearted manner and without any value and UN figures show more than 80 World War I, the country found itself for the chancellor to resign and for elec- Hagelüken explains why tangible plan. percent of Syrians living in poverty, the in a situation that led to a string of new tions to choose a new candidate to take the president might have As this gap between its words and deeds Assad regime continues to focus exclusively coalitions, followed by the rapid col- over the CDU party chairmanship and the to pardon himself for his grew, the West gambled away its cred- on its followers and supporters in an effort lapse of each new government alliance chancellor candidacy in the next election prognosis. ibility. With its system of international to further secure its power. In the case of and, ultimately, to the fatal hope that an are getting louder and louder. Page 17 agreements, moral Aleppo, UN funds authoritarian, How did it come principles and dem- are not directed nationalist gov- to this? Put that in your pipe ocratically legiti- toward the most ernment formed Back in 2015, and smoke it mized institutions, The current devastated resi- by the Nazi party An increasing the AfD and its Nord Stream 2 was almost the West proved dential areas in would be able supporters were ready to deliver gas from capable neither of state of affairs the east of the to re-establish a number of already chant- Russia to Germany. André helping the Syr- city, which used to sense of order. ing “Merkel must Wolf on why the US – and ians nor of ending in Syria is as it be administered Are these fears Germans refuse to go!” At that time, some European countries the war. The reality by opposition justified today? It the economy was – are trying to block the we must now face always was, forces; instead, the would certainly trust the country’s stable, Merkel project altogether. in the case of the money is flowing appear that the last had stoically Page 18 Syrian conflict is only worse to areas populated remaining Volk- big-tent parties steered Germany that liberal democ- by those loyal to spartei, or big-tent through the finan- Tree huggers versus racy has failed, and the regime. In the party, the Christian cial crisis and Neo-Calvinists autocracy has triumphed. This outcome is south of Damascus, in an area marked by Democratic Union (CDU), is now head- the CDU was polling at more than How to save the planet destined to have far-reaching consequences the ruins of bombed-out middle-class and ing for an implosion similar to that of the 40 percent. “Then came the refu- from climate change doom? – for Syrians, the Middle East, Europe and working-class neighborhoods, the city Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the past gee crisis, and with it, the beginning of Julia Boek tells us what’s the world. administration is building luxury resorts several years. The most recent evidence of the decline of the CDU,” noted Niko- wrong with the heated Syrian president Bashar al-Assad remains rather than social housing. Former resi- this came last month in Thuringia, when las Busse in the Frankfurter Allgemeine debates in Germany. in power and is set to regain control of the dents are being expropriated and/or com- CDU deputies joined with the right wing- Sonntagszeitung. Merkel’s successor, he Page 19 entire country in the coming months. In pensated at ridiculously low costs by the ers from the Alternative for Germany argued, “would certainly not be able to Idlib, he will do so by force of arms, and in government. (AfD) to elect a 5-man faction from the avoid distancing themselves from Merkel Missionary positions the northeast, he will do so by means of a This kind of activity is immune to outside liberal FDP party to the office of Minister on the issue of migration policy.” Evangelical churches are gradual takeover of Kurdish self-govern- influence because the behavior itself guar- President of that state. It was a regional But this approach is too one-dimen- opening franchises in ment. In other words, the current state antees the survival of Syria’s rulers. After political fiasco with far-reaching conse- sional. The reasons why an apparently Germany. Nana Brink of affairs in Syria is as it always was, only decades of being under the regime’s thumb, quences for the whole country. growing segment of the population no enters the first ring of hell worse. society, state institutions and the private It has become clear that a small but longer trusts Germany’s more established to report from inside a Saddleback Church mega Assad’s reign hinges on loyalty to the sector form a close-knit network of interde- potentially growing segment of the CDU parties are much more diverse. event in Berlin. regime, which he secures through a system pendencies. Any real concessions – such as has found common ground with the AfD, Surveys have shown that roughly half Page 20 of clientelism and enforces by means of fear. depriving the secret services of power and not only in the states of the former East of the citizens living in eastern German This results in his two strongest pillars of ushering in freedom of expression, freedom Germany, and is now willing to engage in states are only “in part” satisfied with support coming from wealthy businessmen of the press and an independent judiciary – talks with their counterparts in the AfD democracy; the rest indicate that they Comedy Zentral For a few days every year, and a far-reaching intelligence apparatus. would result in a system failure that would as to where cooperation might be pos- are much more dissatisfied than satisfied. Germans try to be funny. Simply put, those who support the regime threaten the survival of the rulers in Damas- sible. In line with the AfD’s parliamentary And the cause of this goes far beyond the In the latest entry in our are rewarded, and those who reject it are cus. By its very nature, the Syrian regime group leader in the Bundestag, Alexander refugee policy. series on Zee Germans, punished. itself is incapable of instituting effective Gauland, this small group of CDU rep- Why does an increasing number of Ger- J.J. Hagedorn examines The country’s secret services are more reforms. resentatives is of the opinion that it is mans refuse to trust the country’s tried what goes down during powerful than ever. Local militias are This is an important insight for foreign “completely nonsensical and unrealistic and tested political battleships? Their Karneval season. involved in a variety of illicit activities, actors seeking an effective approach to not to want to work with the AfD in the answers to this question are many, varied Page 23 which include bribery, blackmail, theft and negotiations with Damascus. Since 2012, long run.” and have little to do with foreign policy. threatening or kidnapping citizens. In the the US and Europe have tried to achieve a In Thuringia, politicians such as the First and foremost, citizens in the east- years before the war, Syrians were subject “credible political transition” in Syria that state’s recently resigned CDU chairman ern states, that is, in the former GDR, READ ONLINE to the despotism of the state alone; today, includes a transfer of power, a transitional Mike Mohring have openly considered sense that they were hoodwinked by the www.german-times.com they are at the mercy of non-state and for- the option of cooperating with the left- eign actors as well. continued on page 4 wing party, Die Linke. But the current continued on page 7 2 The German Times – Politics March 2020

MUNICH MINUTES wo issues dominated the discussions at the Munich Secu- Pompeo and Nancy Pelosi countered accusations by German rity Conference this February: “Westlessness” – the title President Frank-Walter Steinmeier that the US had given up on Tof this year’s Munich Security Report – and China’s foreign the idea of an “international community.” policy. The American speakers also expressed concern over China’s Angela Merkel did not make it to Munich, but her name was assertiveness and ambitions. The potential participation of Huawei on everyone’s lips. French President Emmanuel Macron was in the global expansion of the 5G wireless network is jeopardizing perturbed by the German government’s hesitance to embrace his NATO. they argued. Mike Pompeo even invoked the notion of a proposal for joint weapons systems and a militarily more potent Trojan Horse. EU: “I’m not frustrated, I’m impatient.” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called these criticisms noth- More than 500 security experts, including 35 heads of state or ing but a “smear campaign and lies” and injected Russia into the government and around 100 ministers from all over the world, debate, announcing that Beijing will develop closer ties to Moscow. discussed the West’s abdication of its global responsibilities, the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg promised that Article erosion of multilateralism and the “bilateralization” now champi- 5 still holds – if a NATO member is attacked, the Alliance is obli- oned by the US. In a rare moment of harmony, US officials Mike gated to act.

MUNICH MIC

ohn Kerry was the guest Donald Trump had decided of honor at the presen- to withdraw from the agree- Jtation of The Security ment, calling the country’s Times on the eve of the 2020 current policy “a disgrace.” Munich Security Conference. The former senator and The former US secretary of 2004 presidential candidate state under Barack Obama spoke of the origin story of Frank-Walter Steinmeier Nancy Pelosi Emmanuel Macron Ursula von der Leyen did not waste the opportunity climate denialism in his coun- President of Germany Speaker of the US House President of France President of the European to speak to the politicians, try, citing Harvard scholar of Representatives Commission foreign policy experts and Naomi Oreskes’ study Mer- “Under its current adminis- “Common security in Europe journalists gathered on the chants of Doubt on the his- tration, our closest ally, the “The world can ill-afford an has two pillars; one of these “In a time of growing geopo- top floor of the Bayerischer tory of industrial lobbyist United States of America, arms race. Nonproliferation pillars is NATO and the other litical tensions, we need the Hof Hotel, overlooking the rejects the very concept of has always been a pillar of is a Europe of defense.” UN more than ever.” groups funding scientists who an international community. American national secu- (during the ceremony pre- city’s famous Church of Our never intended to lay out Every country, it believes, rity. We must preserve our senting the Ewald von Kleist Lady. actual evidence. The lobbies’ should look after itself and nonproliferation framework, Award to António Guterres Kerry gave a passionate instructions to the scientists put its own interests before working together as NATO on Feb. 15) impromptu speech on the were that “we don’t have to all others. As if everyone allies.” dangers of climate change: win the debate, we only have thinking of himself meant that “People are dying because to create doubt.” That doubt, everyone is being consid- of the consequences of the Kerry said, has gotten “in the ered. ‘Great again’ – even world’s unwillingness to con- way of what we have to do.” at the expense of neighbors front the challenges of cli- The reasons for inaction and partners.” mate change properly.” also include “greed, money, Kerry stressed the symbolic power, perceived self-inter- and practical significance of est, indifference and, in the the Paris Climate Agreement, case of the current president, in which 195 signatory coun- I hate to say it, actual igno-

MSC/KUHLMANN (11) tries came together and – rance of the facts.” with a big assist from Obama, Kerry warned of a looming who Kerry claims personally migration crisis that will far sought out Chinese President exceed what happened in Xi Jinping in the halls of the Europe in 2015, which caused

Conference champion: German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier kicks off the Super Bowl of security conferences on Feb. 14, 2020.

Chairman of the Munich Security Conference Wolfgang Ischinger (left) and guest of honor John Kerry (middle) with The Security Times publisher Detlef Prinz

UN-organized conference in seismic shifts in the political 2015 – eventually signed the landscape of the continent. accord. The agreement did In terms of a future outlook, indeed guarantee that the Kerry said, a turnaround is world would limit the rise of still in the cards: “We have global temperatures since the capacity in the next eight the advent of industrialization to ten years. If we get our act to 2 degrees Celsius. The together, we can do it.” importance of Paris, Kerry What the G20 nations, Wang Yi Heiko Maas Mike Pompeo Annegret Kramp-Karren- observed, was that “we are which are responsible for 85 Foreign Minister of China Foreign Minister of Germany US Secretary of State bauer sending a message to the percent of all global emis- German Minister of Defense global market place that 188 sions, need to do is treat “Given its national condi- “We have to do more… “I am happy to report that countries are moving in the the problem “like a war,” he tions, China will not copy the And we have indeed already the death of the trans- “The West is more than just same direction.” argued. Now is the time to Western model. Given its begun. But the debate Atlantic alliance is grossly geography. The West is an The following year saw the seriously invest in future zero- cultural traditions, China will cannot be focused on a over-exaggerated. The West idea, the idea of a free soci- investment of $358 billion in emission technology. Refer- not seek hegemony, even single question. The strength is winning. We are collec- ety, of human rights, the rule renewable energy: “For the ring to the Fridays for Future when it grows in strength. of our tively winning. We’re doing it of law and the separation of first time in human history, movement, Kerry said “these What we have chosen is alliance cannot be mea- together.” powers.” more money went into that kids are terrific, but they are peaceful development of our sured in euros or dollars.” source of energy than into not sitting in any boardrooms own country and mutually fossil fuels.” where the decisions are beneficial cooperation with Kerry lamented the fact made. They are telling us to the world.” that the US under President be the adults.” March 2020 The German Times – Politics 3

SHUTTERSTOCK.COM/KOSTSOV From missionary to monastery How Europe should counter the rise of illiberal democracies

power by overthrowing the liberal of hypokrisis, for it is a necessary recently heard similar fixations on even after Trump leaves office, In other words, if until now the BY IVAN KRASTEV norms on which its hegemony was element in any liberal society, in Western hypocrisy coming from the US will not embrace its EU was very much colored by the founded. any society that talks values. In Turkey, China and Brazil. former role as the leader of the idea of the universality of its values n Dec. 10, 1948, shat- Through the increasing passion her view, it is also an unattractive By relying on the exposure of liberal world and the guarantor and institutions, in the future it tered by the horrors of and frequency of their attacks on but unavoidable feature of interna- an enemy’s hypocrisy to justify of the liberal system. And even should sharply stress its excep- OWorld War II, the inter- the West for unbearable hypocrisy, tional relations. At the same time, one’s own aggressive acts, one more importantly, the US would tionalism. If before it was proud national community adopted the illiberal political leaders in Russia criticizing hypocrisy is also tricky, can attack the existing world face many constraints in playing of the undefined nature of its Universal Declaration of Human and elsewhere have been sending because in politics it is almost order without offering any posi- this role. borders, now it will have to fix its Rights. Of the United Nations’ 58 a clear signal to their populations impossible to criticize hypocrisy tive alternative. But this is not a As indicated in a recent survey borders. The distinctive nature of member states, 48 voted in favor about the revolutionary change without falling into the trap of formula for a sober foreign policy commissioned by the European a monastery is that while it hopes of the declaration, eight abstained they represent. playing the part one is also criticiz- based on proper understanding Council on Foreign Relations to influence the world beyond its (the Soviet Union and its East- What are the sources of this all- ing. While anti-hypocrisy rhetoric of the actions and motivations (ECFR), the US is perceived as a door, it is aware that it lives in a ern European allies plus Saudi powerful hypersensitivity about has its legitimate arguments, it is of the other side. Instead, it security threat rather than as an different normative space than Arabia) and two did not vote. The hypocrisy? Is the problem power one of our major findings that the increases the risks of dangerous ally by a sizable segment of Euro- the outside world. It is insulated world was far less liberal in 1948 asymmetries that make relatively weaponization of anti-hypocrisy accidents. pean societies. It is also question- from the world, and there is a clear than it is today, and the concept less powerful states and societ- rhetoric is partially responsible What should be the policy of able how liberal the post-populist border between being inside the of human rights wasn’t popular ies particularly sensitive to the for the current miserable state of any state actor that wants to pre- governments in the different parts monastery and being outside of with the global public. Never- big boys breaking the rules? Is it international affairs. serve the normative power of the of the world will be. The failure of it. To focus on the exceptional theless, it would hardly raise an the tendency of the US and the By focusing on the West’s hypoc- liberal values in a world in which populism does not automatically nature of the EU is the only strat- eyebrow were one to speculate EU, more so than any other global risy, Russia has fatally eroded illiberal great powers have wea- mean victory for liberalism. egy that would sustain the internal that if the 1948 Universal Declara- powers, to regularly invoke uni- the trust between Russia and ponized “Western hypocrisy”? The only way for the EU to cohesion of the union while at the tion came up for a vote in the UN versal principles to justify their the West. In the Kremlin’s view, How should the EU act and talk survive as a liberal actor in an same time acting as an alternative tomorrow, the chances of it being conduct of foreign policy? increasingly illiberal envi- to growing illiberal trends. Brus- approved would be very slim. Finding answers to these ronment is by transform- sels’ new climate agenda is also In 1948, the liberal order was a “hypocrisy questions” is ing itself from a missionary an opportunity for the EU to re- normative horizon; today it is a critical, because the accusa- Once the liberal hegemon, who wants to shape the invent its soft power and to stress contested hegemony. The assump- tion of hypocrisy is the most world in his own image into its belief in multilateralism. tions on which the liberal order effective strategy for de- the US has decided to preserve a monastery focused on The EU should define itself as rests are being challenged intel- legitimizing the current lib- protecting the very excep- a monastery within the world of lectually and politically by states eral order –bearing in mind its power by overthrowing the tional nature of its political sin, a monastery that is economi- within and outside the West. that there is no other set project. cally and even militarily powerful Illiberal states like China and of normative ideas able to liberal norms on which its When the EU raises enough to preserve its autono- Russia contest the West’s domi- challenge it at the moment. human rights issues in its mous role and way of life, but one nation, but do so by violating the The hypocrisy of West- hegemony was founded conversations with China, that tries to transform others only rules of the liberal order rather ern leaders – lecturing the it should make its expecta- through the example of its very than by offering a well-articulated world about high-minded tions clear: it is not trying existence. And it should refrain normative alternative. What is values while actually being moti- hypocrisy is the skeleton key for in such a situation, keeping in to change China’s attitudes, but from succumbing to desperation, more, when it is in their interests, vated by selfish geopolitical inter- unlocking Western foreign policy. mind that it as a post-national instead preserve the EU’s own for every monastery is a mission- illiberal states position themselves ests – has become one of Rus- Alternative explanations for the political project depends on the exceptional nature. In this sense, ary in waiting. as defenders of international insti- sia’s gnawing obsessions. The West’s failures to live up to its existence of the international lib- China’s behavior in the first post- tutions and global goods instead of so-called “liberal international own ideals – such as poor plan- eral order and that liberal inter- communist decades could be an offering alternatives to them. The order,” in Moscow’s view, was ning, muddling through, naïveté, nationalism and multilateralism interesting model to follow. China support of China and Russia for nothing nobler than a projection self-deception and lack of coordi- is the EU’s mother tongue? And accommodated itself to many IVAN KRASTEV the Paris Climate Agreement, for of America’s will to dominate the nation on the Western side – are how should the EU react to the of the global trends that shaped is a fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna the World Trade Organization and world. Western universalism was strategically downplayed in order escalating accusations of hypoc- the post-Cold War world, but it and the Richard von for the Global Compact for Migra- just a false front for Western par- to underscore America’s principled risy any time someone dares to defended the role of Marxist lan- Weizsäcker fellow at the tion in the face of US opposition ticularism. America, in particular, bad faith. Unmasking hypocrisy speak about values? guage and the Communist Party Robert Bosch Foundation in are cases in point. disguised the enlargement of its implicitly attributes malicious The strategy most popular with as the way to preserve its state Berlin. He is a founding board At the same time, liberal norms sphere of influence as an expan- intentions to the adversary. Dis- European leaders today is to identity. In the post-communist member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, are being challenged within sion of the frontiers of freedom. tinguishing public justifications ignore the illiberal turn, to treat decades, China acted with the a member of the board of Western societies by rising popu- What the West celebrated as pop- from hidden motivations is only it as an aberration and wait for full awareness that some of the trustees of the International list parties and especially by the ular democratic revolutions were common sense. But focusing dog- America to make a U-turn back assumptions in which it had Crisis Group and a Trump administration, which has simply West-sponsored coups matically and obsessively on this to its liberal self once Trump is believed had turned out to be contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. defined America’s commitment to d’état. distinction, as Russia seems to do, out of office, and to bet on the wrong, but at the same time it His piece is based on the the liberal order as the country’s In her remarkable book Ordi- makes it impossible to arrive at any exhaustion of the attractiveness made Chinese communism the research project on hypocrisy major vulnerability in the modern nary Vices, the American philoso- sensible policy directed at reduc- of the illiberal actors. defining characteristic of its excep- that Krastev initiated and led at world. Once the liberal hegemon, pher Judith Shklar insists that we ing tensions and re-building trust This strategy is a risky one. We tionalism. The EU should do the the Robert Bosch Academy. the US has decided to preserve its should not be so harshly critical between Russia and the West. We have many reasons to believe that same regarding liberalism. 4 The German Times – Politics March 2020

goal. Like our soldiers do in train- the EU is an economic giant yet a this flaw. In Syria, Iran, Iraq as well declared that the third major pri- first nuclear power station under BY SYLVIA SCHREIBER ing and on operations.” political and military dwarf. as in the conflict in Libya, the EU ority of her “geopolitical” Com- French oversight, but also partici- Is this the format by which a With no further steps toward has remained absent, leaving the mission would be to carry greater pation in Franco-German arma- ne image can speak vol- new European power geometry political integration, the Euro- field to new geopolitical players weight in the world for the EU. ments projects such as joint tank umes. The participants will come into focus? Could this pean community of states will such as Russia and Turkey. “Here, “Credible military capacities” construction. Oat the Libya summit in be a format that exists in addition struggle to free itself from this Europe is a nothing, it is point- are needed, she said, as is “hard These ideas had previously been Berlin take their places on the to the EU and as a force beyond paradoxical situation. On the con- less,” railed Joost Hiltermann, the power,” adding that they should rejected by Germany. In contrast podium for a group photo. Posi- NATO? German European poli- trary, although the EU has enjoyed program director for the Middle also be coupled with “diplomacy, to Berlin, Paris thinks in geopo- tioning themselves at the front cymakers are skeptical: “The E3 increasing global recognition as East and North Africa at the conflict prevention, reconciliation litical categories; French foreign are representatives of the proxy will not be able to replace the a trading power in recent years, Brussels think-tank International and reconstruction.” policy defines long-term interests powers behind the Libyan civil common EU foreign and security it has also lost political influence. Crisis Group, an NGO affiliated For French President Emman- and spheres of interest on the basis war: Russia, Turkey and Egypt. policy, as this represents all of the The rules-based EU system, which with Human Rights Watch. The uel Macron, however, this color- of geography and history. Alongside them are the neutral all member states,” said Alexander is tasked with substituting political EU has “neither the foreign policy ful Brussels wish list does not go Brexit will undoubtedly shift conciliators, United Nations Sec- Graf Lambsdorff, vice-chairman of power legitimization with treaties backbone nor the will.” nearly far enough. Macron, who the foreign policy clout of the EU retary-General António Guterres the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and negotiations, comes up against In an interview with the German launched what his advisors call his in favor of French influence. At with summit host Chancellor the Libya Conference in Berlin, Angela Merkel. The German Macron cheerfully positioned chancellor sent out the original himself under the E3 umbrella. invitation as an honest broker for Should the trio prove its potential Europe, which has a vital interest as heavyweights in Europe, it will in peace in neighboring Africa as likely push the pallid EU foreign well as in migration issues. policy even further into the back-

Merkel is not the only Euro- PICTURE ALLIANCE/SULUPRESS.DE ground. Unerring advocates of the pean head of government in the French method of “variable geom- front row. Next to Merkel stands etry,” in which changing political French President Emmanuel pairings are welcomed for their Macron, beaming at the photog- respective purposes, will barely raphers, and on the far right is the intrude on Macron’s visions. jovial Prime Minister of the United In Warsaw, the French extended Kingdom, Boris Johnson, whose yet another invitation for bilateral country has just left the European cooperation, in this case a new Union. All the while, the official configuration of the European representatives of the EU find Intervention Initiative (EI2), a mili- themselves far from front and tary cooperation of strong Euro- center. In the photo, it is not easy pean states under French leader- to make out EU Commission Pres- ship. Since the commencement of ident Ursula von der Leyen, while the EI2 in summer 2018, the mili- High Representative of the Union tary general staff of nine EU coun- for Foreign Affairs and Security A picture paints a thousand words: The EU's Michel, Borell and von der Leyen were relegated to the back row. tries plus the UK has adopted this Policy Josep Borrell is also rel- formula as it works on a “strategic egated to the second row – the culture” and “military doctrine.” courtesy seats for the also-rans. The cooperation is aimed at a rapid The triumvirate of the EU’s military crisis response. “big three” assembled in the front Creating a more robust Europe is row has a name of its own: the the goal of the many initiatives that E3 format, in the style of the G7. have emerged. But as long as these The world’s seven major industrial Geometry class individual measures remain unbun- nations act in formation, and so, dled, the continent will remain too, does the E3. Future foreign unmanageable. The old US dream and security leadership will be the The heads of government of major European nations are setting the tone in of a single telephone number for all task of the largest European states, foreign policy, while EU High Representative Josep Borrell stands idly by of Europe could hardly be farther with France and the UK as notable from reality. military and nuclear powers and Alexander Lambsdorff has some Germany as the strongest eco- advice on whom to call: “Not a nomic nation and political con- Berlin number in any case,” joked stant on the continent. in the Bundestag and former its limits when there are funda- weekly Die Zeit, former President “disruptive strategy” last fall with the liberal politician. Germany’s A few days earlier in a speech at member of European Parliament. mental differences of opinion. of the European Commission and the jolting description of NATO’s grand coalition was “worn out the London School of Economics, “The joint policy of the Union The euro and migration crisis former Prime Minister of Italy “brain-death,” is now embracing on the one hand, chaotic on the German Defense Minister Anne- takes priority. The UK will par- between 2008 and 2016 revealed Romano Prodi took the EU to task his role as Europe’s *enfant ter- other,” he noted, whereas a forma- gret Kramp-Karrenbauer made ticipate on a case-by-case basis.” fault lines and frailties within on the question of Libya: “If you rible.* He has drawn even more tive policy role and fresh ideas are clear that this current picture is The E3 group, which the Euro- the community. Between north turn yourself into a sheep, the wolf attention by calling for a renewed clearly emanating from Paris at the more than a mere snapshot: “The peans used to successfully negoti- and south, the question of social will have you for dinner.” Today, partnership with Russian Presi- moment. “Nevertheless, I would E3 format is an important future ate the first nuclear agreements cohesion remains unresolved. In he argued, the task is to “develop a dent Vladimir Putin, thereby also advise US Secretary of State link between the mindsets of the with Iran in 2003 and 2004, may attitudes towards migration and vision for Europe’s role.” immediately alienating the Baltic Mike Pompeo to make a call to the EU and NATO. It is more than just succeed in keeping the British on borders, there is a deep and as yet However, such a vision already EU states and NATO members, EU High Representative in Brus- another format,” she explained. board the European ship follow- unbridgeable fissure between east exists. During Prodi’s time in office who see their solid borders with sels.” According to Lambsdorff, “It is based on the fundamental ing Brexit. While simultaneously and west. in Brussels, the decision was made Russia as a guarantee of their exis- this is the only place where one conviction that working together anchored to NATO, the format In any case, the Union has pre- to establish a European Defense tence. can find out what Europe is think- makes us stronger. Each one of allows the big three to demon- cious little foreign policy cred- Union, including a European Macron’s most recent coup is ing “as a whole.” After all, Europe us is a strong, free and sover- strate military, diplomatic and ibility; the principle of unanimity Army. That was back in 2003. As the initiation of a “strategic dialog and the EU are far more than just eign nation. We will remain free economic muscle; the proof that and veto, which quickly leads to of 2020, neither the defense union with EU members on nuclear the big E3. and sovereign, but we will only Europe has more to offer than paralyzing logjams caused by indi- nor the European army has yet deterrence” under the French become stronger if we find more an EU comprised of brokers and vidual states, adds to an overall been implemented. nuclear shield. He had already points of contact.” The E3 stands negotiators. “While others arm picture of disharmony. But there are prospects. In addi- campaigned for a new partner- SYLVIA SCHREIBER is an EU correspondent who for a European security partner- themselves, the EU believes in The newly created position of tion to the “Green Deal” for the ship with Poland in the past, in has written for Der Spiegel, ship that enables “people with treaties and agreements,” said one High Representative of the Union climate and the digitalization of military terms as well. For his Handelsblatt and Les different national backgrounds to Brussels diplomat with regard for Foreign Affairs and Security the European economy, Com- neighbors in the east, he proposed Européens in Brussels. work together towards a common to the decades-old dilemma that Policy has done little to alleviate mission President von der Leyen not only the construction of the

continued from page 1 Nation unbuilding government, a new constitution in this case Russia – that wanted to not to support the Syrian regime. donors of humanitarian aid to the Euphrates against the Kurds with Hezbollah in Lebanon and and democratic elections under keep its last ally in the Middle East Indeed, every dollar and euro sent Syria. and now also in Libya. With its Hashd al-Shaabi in Iraq. This UN supervision – none of which in power and was therefore willing to Damascus with good intentions While Europeans and Americans offensive in northeastern Syria in would complete the Shi'ite “axis of have come to pass. to use its air force to destroy or will only serve to further consoli- continue to provide humanitarian October 2019, Turkey drove the resistance” extending from Tehran The mantra repeated by heads of expel all opponents of the regime; date the very regime structures that aid to Syrians, thereby relieving Democratic Union Party (PYD) via Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut state and foreign ministers in the a regional power – in this case Iran led to the uprising nine years ago. Assad of that burden and freeing into the arms of Assad and Putin, all the way to the Mediterranean West – that is, their insistence that – experienced in asymmetrical What unsuspecting politi- him up to pursue his Idlib cam- thereby preventing the creation of and to the borders of Israel. How- resolving the conflict requires a warfare and capable of organiz- cians, journalists and bloggers paign, Russia, Iran and Turkey are an autonomous Kurdish state in ever, this would be quite difficult in political rather than military solu- ing Shi'ite militias on the ground; perceive as stability in Syria is working to safeguard their long- the medium term. Syria, which has a Shi'ite popula- tion – has become an embarrass- a war-weary world power – in this actually nothing more than what term presence and commitment A rapprochement between tion of only 2 percent. ing phrase. It exposes the West's case the US – that was cautious we would call Friedhofsruhe in in Syria. The autocratic leaders Ankara and Damascus is possible; The US and Europe have lost the lack of strategic vision and sheer and in retreat; divided Europeans German, namely that deathly of each of these countries simply their secret service chiefs met in conflict in Syria. In the short term, inability to act. with no plan at all; a blocked UN calm felt in cemeteries. Assad don’t see foreign policy as a diplo- Moscow in January. Russia main- they should stand firm against the This mantra disregards one of Security Council; and, finally, the needs the money to reward his matic negotiation of compromises; tains three military bases in Syria Syrian regime and against Russia’s the most basic rules of diplomacy: ignorance of the world community. cronies, to pacify the militias, to instead, they see it as the pursuit and will therefore remain a pres- attempts at “peacemaking.” They that a negotiated solution is only In contrast to the US and draw supporters closer to him of a strategy of pure self-interest. ence in the East Mediterranean should put pressure on the UN to possible when all parties to the Europe, the Russian president has through better living conditions Of course, these leaders have for decades. In addition, Russian ensure that any humanitarian aid conflict no longer see the point a functioning plan in Syria. It com- and to maintain the secret service no problem with Assad's authori- companies succeeded in signing is given to the neediest people and in continued fighting. The situa- prises three stages: rescue, recap- apparatus. He has no interest in tarianism, and this means that the largely one-sided contracts for the not to Assad’s network of cronies. tion in Syria would have to reach ture and rehabilitate. Today, we the return of Syrian refugees from Syrian regime can do whatever it extraction of oil, gas and phospho- In the long term, Europeans can a stage where none of the stake- are moving through the transition abroad; indeed, he deliberately wants on the domestic front. Not rus there. place their hopes on the desire of holders see any benefit to military to phase three, the aim of which drove most of them out of the even the Kremlin can influence Moscow is eager to strengthen the Syrian people for change, sup- escalation; only then would we see is to make the Syrian regime an country in the first place as a way Assad's secret services. As a result, state structures and contain porting their quest for freedom, genuine willingness to compro- accepted member of the interna- of ridding himself of his enemies. there can be no security guaran- militias in Syria – in contrast to justice and reconciliation wher- mise, thereby providing the diplo- tional community once again. At the moment, Assad is tees from the Russian side for any Tehran, which is working to create ever they can. matic leeway needed to negotiate The logic behind this strategy delighted. After all, the UN has Syrians wishing to return to their a state within the state in order an agreement. seems plausible: Assad has won and been working for years with gov- home country. to secure its own military, politi- The conflict in Syria never remains in power, so it makes sense ernment-related organizations, The efforts made by the three cal, economic and social influ- KRISTIN HELBERG reached such a point. For Assad, to acknowledge this reality, to work companies and individuals who interventionist powers in the ence. The recently murdered is a journalist and an expert it’s always been worthwhile to fight constructively toward rebuilding continue to distribute aid money Syrian civil war have paid off. General Qassim Soleimani was in on the conflict in Syria. She works for ARD, ORF and for survival, and his regime had the war-torn country, to improve in a manner that suits his wishes. Although Ankara moved away the process of setting up Syrian other broadcasters. Her book everything it needed to win the conditions for its poor and to allow Some of these partners are even from its original goal of regime paramilitary groups modeled after Der Syrien-Krieg: Lösung war in military terms: weapons of Syrian refugees to return. on US and European lists of sanc- change in Damascus, it is still able the Iranian Revolutionary Guards eines Weltkonflikts (The war mass destruction and the readiness The only problem is that anyone tioned organizations; this is a true to use some of the Syrian insur- and fighting for Assad under local in Syria: Solving a world conflict) was published by to use them against its own citi- who wants to actually help the scandal, given that Washington gents as Islamist mercenaries to leadership. Iran’s goal there is to Herder in 2018. zens; a supporting world power – people of Syria would be wise and Berlin are the largest bilateral assert its own interests east of repeat in Syria what it achieved March 2020 The German Times – Politics 5

UK found partners in headed by Michel Bar- too much in London’s direction, BY ALMUT MÖLLER spirit across Europe PLAYING HARDBALL nier to preserve the and Paris may insist just a bit too – a state of affairs that unity of the EU. much on seizing the opportunity mong the tectonic shifts further alienated Brus- Brexit may actually help EU members better Germany has a vital of Brexit to rebuild the European in international relations sels policymakers from understand their joint interests interest in keeping the Union “à la française.” Athat both analysts and the UK. As a consequence, UK engaged as a partner, This battle of ideas between policymakers have been trying to the Channel widened and and that interest seems to Germany and France is nothing make sense of over the past years, it became almost impossible be mutual. Most importantly, new. When the Franco-German there is one that deserves particu- to bridge the growing gaps on the many questions of Euro- Élysée Treaty was put to a vote in lar attention. The departure of the between Britain and continental pean security in all its dimensions, the Bundestag in Bonn in January United Kingdom from the Euro- Europe. it is nigh impossible to conceive 1963, West German MPs, much to pean Union – Brexit – that took Of course, we’re not quite there of European strength without the the chagrin of Paris, insisted that effect on Jan. 31, 2020, marks a yet. And it’s true that we may not contribution of the UK. At the a preamble be added to the treaty turning point for Europe. get anywhere near such a scenario. same time, Berlin knows that the that emphasized the relevance of In the future, historians may But there’s a risk that the paths of hardball while European further London drifts away from the trans-Atlantic relationship and look back at 2020 as the year in the UK and the EU27 will diverge not falling out with London Commission President continental Europe, the more the wish for the UK to become a which European integration – the much faster and much more mark- as a consequence. There is a risk Ursula von der Leyen countered Germany must invest in its own member of the European Com- main process behind which Euro- edly in the coming months than of this happening, however, and by insisting that it was a very contributions. munity. peans had rallied their economic many of us would like to see. It one should not underestimate the ambitious plan to negotiate a com- In this context, the difficult rela- Now that the UK has left the and political aspirations for more is worth remembering that the sense of displeasure among Brus- prehensive agreement in such a tionship between Berlin and Paris EU and Europe is struggling to than half a century – became a spirit of cooperation, however sels policymakers at the UK’s deci- short time. In other words, she provides reason for concern. The define the future of its relation- contested idea. With the depar- imperfect, that guided relations sion to jeopardize the unity and considered the plan to be almost problem is not the likelihood that ship with the US, we are yet again ture of its third largest member among fellow members of the EU future of the EU by means of its impossible to achieve. Even when Paris will take a more hard-nosed in a formative moment of Euro- state, the union of 27 was suddenly is unlikely to carry the day in the departure. taking into account the fact that approach in dealing with London pean history. While the coming faced with a serious competitor post-Brexit relationship between Certain subsequent actions tactics are at play now and that in the coming months, insisting months of EU-UK negotiations in its immediate neighborhood. the UK and the Continent. from London in the months the mandates for the negotiations that “Brexit means Brexit,” while will center on mountainous piles London, in embracing the monu- The EU and its members must ahead could trigger a deep sense are being hammered out, both Berlin assumes a moderating role. of detail, they will ultimately boil mental task of creating wealth and quickly learn to see the UK as a of resentment. It is thus important positions are credible. The ques- This division of roles between down to one simple question: Will prosperity for its citizens outside competitor, and perhaps even to acknowledge that the logic of tion is how much wiggle room Germany and France has become the UK and the EU still be able to of the Union, had no choice but to an adversary at times. This does cooperation between the EU and the UK and the EU have to come routine, and could lead to a good collectively pull their weight in key adopt a resolute approach. not mean that these new circum- the UK changed significantly in up with a sound framework of outcome in bringing other EU areas of joint interest? This rather This approach included not only stances prohibit mutually benefi- January 2020. cooperation by the end of the members into a compromise. broad view may help us see the the rejection of the “level playing cial cooperation. In fact, it might The negotiated overall frame- year. Brussels is rife with skepti- The problem stems from the fact forest for the trees in the months field” that the EU insisted on in even lead to the EU and its mem- work will determine what rela- cism on the matter. that ever since French President to come. subsequent negotiations over bers gaining a better understand- tions will look like in the coming One key question for the EU Emmanuel Macron took office, the its future relationship with the ing of their joint interests; this, in years. London is determined to is whether the unity of its 27 degree to which there has been UK. London also substantively turn, could lead to a strengthening have an agreement on the future member states – which held so disagreement between Berlin and ALMUT MÖLLER invested in its networks across EU of unity among the EU27 and also relationship with the EU27 in impressively, and perhaps surpris- Paris over the direction, substance is a Hamburg State Secretary countries, thereby doing its part to help craft a new relationship with place by the end of the year. UK ingly, during the years of the UK’s and modus operandi of the EU and Plenipotentiary to the impede cohesion within the EU. the UK. Prime Minister Boris Johnson slow departure from the Union makes it particularly difficult to German government, the At a time when the direction and Still, even though the EU’s coop- has insisted that there will be no – will prevail. There is reason to conceive of the Franco-German European Union and for Foreign Affairs. The ideas depth of European integration had erative approach and quest for extension of the transition period think that in this new phase of tandem delivering a win on the expressed in this article are already become contested within compromise is part of its DNA, beyond Dec. 31, 2020. During a the relationship, it will be more post-Brexit relationship with the hers alone. and between EU countries, the it is going to have to learn to play visit to London in January 2020, challenging for EU negotiators UK. Berlin may lean just a bit

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The mild West The US and Europe hold a hand that’s too good to fold

These actions were part of a BY JOSEPH S. NYE JR. realist strategy designed to con- tain Soviet power, but contain- ith the end of the ment was interpreted in vari- Cold War, many ous ways. Americans had bitter Wbelieved the West debates over intervention in had prevailed. In his 1992 book developing countries like Vietnam ticed full The End of History and the Last and, more recently, Iraq. reciprocity Man, Francis Fukuyama wrote But while interventions were as a market that humanity had reached “the highly contentious, the liberal economy, end-point of mankind’s ideo- institutional order enjoyed broad and its rejec- logical evolution and the uni- support until the 2016 election tion of a 2016 versalization of Western liberal when Donald Trump became the Hague tribunal democracy as the final form of first candidate of a major party ruling regarding human government.” A few years to attack it. His populist appeal the South China Sea later, Samuel Huntington issued a rested on the economic disloca- raised many concerns. gloomier prognosis in The Clash tions of globalization that were Thus far, China has tried of Civilizations and the Remaking accentuated by the Great Reces- not to overthrow but rather of World Order that “the rise of sion in 2008 along with cultural increase its influence over the China and the increasing asser- changes related to race, the role Western world order from which tiveness of this ‘biggest player of women and gender identity it benefits, but this could change in the history of man’ will place that had polarized the American as Chinese power grows. tremendous stress on interna- electorate. SHUTTERSTOCK.COM// MOREVECTOR game, but we The Trump administration tional stability in the early 21st Trump successfully linked white must resist hys- labeled China a revisionist century.” resentment over the increasing teria if we are to power, but so far – unlike Hitler’s Western civilization did not visibility and influence of racial play our hand skill- Germany or Stalin’s USSR – it exist in full flower until 1500, and ethnic minorities to foreign fully. Discarding our reflects that of a moderate revi- and before 1800, Asia was home policy by blaming economic prob- high cards of alliances sionist. China is not interested in to more than half the world’s lems on bad trade deals and on and international insti- kicking over the card table but in population and world economy. immigrants competing for jobs. In tutions would be a seri- tilting the table to pocket more By 1900, however, while Asia January 2017, Martin Wolf wrote in ous mistake. If the US winnings. still represented more than half The Financial Times: “We are at the maintains its alliance As Chinese power grows, the the world’s population it con- end of both an economic period with Japan, China cannot West’s “liberal international stituted only 20 percent of the – that of Western-led global- push the US beyond the order” will have to change. China world economy. The industrial ization – and a geopolitical first island chain, because has little interest in liberalism revolution in Europe and North one, the post-cold war Japan is a major part of that or Western domination. We America and domination of the ‘unipolar moment’ chain. will need to think in terms of an seas had made Europe the center of a US-led Another possible mistake “open and rules-based” world of the global balance of power global would be to try to cut off all order to manage economic and until it tore itself apart in World order.” immigration. When asked why he ecological interdependencies like War I. What did not think China would pass climate change. After the United States tipped comes the US in total power any time Ideological differences will per- the outcome of the war, it was next? soon, former Prime Minister of sist over values like human rights, clear that the country featured Realists Singapore Lee Kuan Yew cited but this should not prevent nego- not only the world’s largest econ- argue that the US ability to draw diverse tiations and institutions from omy but was also crucial to the world order rests on and creative talents from around managing interdependencies. global balance of power. How- the global balance of power the world and recombine them Even as he worried about con- ever, the US failed to act in its and that a rising China is not in a way that was not possible for flicts of civilizations two decades new role, and instead continued interested in a liberal or Western China’s ethnic Han nationalism. If ago, Huntington proposed a to behave as a free rider in the order. Some go further and pre- Trump’s populism leads the US to “commonalities rule: peoples in provision of global public goods, dict a “Thucydides Trap” in which discard its high cards of external all civilizations should search for a role that Britain could no longer war between a rising power and an alliances and domestic openness, an attempt to expand the values, afford. established power tears the world China is a country of great US workforce is likely to increase Lee could be proved wrong. institutions and practices they Lacking a global government, apart, much as Europe suffered strength but also important by 5 percent while China’s will As China’s power grows, some have in common with peoples of the world depends on the larg- in 1914. weaknesses. The US has some decline by 9 percent. China will worry we are destined for war, other civilizations.” est country to provide order and long-term power advantages that soon lose its superlative popula- but few consider an altogether dif- More recently, in 2017, Bill global public goods; in the nine- will persist. One is geography. tion rank to India, while its work- ferent kind of disruption. Rather Emmott wrote in The Fate of the teenth century, the Pax Britan- The US is surrounded by oceans ing-age population already peaked than acting like a revolutionary West: “Yes, the barbarians are nica contributed security, eco- China is less and neighbors that are likely to in 2015. Many Chinese say they power in the international order, at the West’s gates. Certainly, nomic stability and protection remain friendly. China has bor- worry about “growing old before China may decide to be a free China’s pressure to dominate of global commons such as free- interested in ders with 14 countries and has growing rich.” rider like the US in the 1930s. its neighborhood and be treated dom of the seas. Instead, the US territorial disputes with India, The US has been at the forefront China may act too weakly rather as an equal partner to the US is “returned to normalcy” and there kicking over Japan and Vietnam that set limits in the development of key tech- than too strongly and refuse to hard to deal with.” But in his view, was no liberal Western order in on its soft power. nologies (bio, nano, information) contribute to an international “the response begins with allies, the 1930s. The result was a disas- the card table Energy is another American that are central to this century’s order it did not create. friendships and legitimacy: … the trous decade of global economic advantage. A decade ago, the US economic growth, and Western On the other hand, China greatest assets the West has.” depression, genocide and eventu- than in tilting seemed hopelessly dependent research universities dominate knows it profited from the post- And as I argue in Do Morals ally World War II. on imported energy. Now the higher education. In a 2017 rank- 1945 Western international order. Matter? Presidents and Foreign Leaders like Franklin Roosevelt the table to shale revolution has transformed ing by Shanghai Jiao Tong Uni- China is one of the five coun- Policy from FDR to Trump, the saw the mistakes of US isola- it from an energy importer to versity, none of the top 20 global tries with veto power in the UN future of the West is put at risk tionism and created the Bretton pocket more exporter. At the same time, China universities were Chinese. Security Council. China is now more by the rise of nativist popu- Woods institutions in 1944 and is becoming more dependent on China is investing heavily in the second-largest funder of UN lism at home than by the rise of the United Nations in 1945. A winnings energy imports, while much of research and development. The peacekeeping forces and partici- China abroad. The answer will turning point was Harry Truman’s the oil it imports is transported country also now competes pated in UN programs related to depend on our choices. postwar decisions that led to per- through the Indian Ocean and the well in some fields – including Ebola and climate change. manent alliances and a continual But these gloomy projections South China Sea, where the US artificial intelligence – and its China has benefited greatly military presence abroad. The rest on exaggerations of China’s and its allies maintain a significant technological progress is no from economic institutions, but JOSEPH S. NYE JR. US invested heavily in the Mar- power and Western weakness. naval presence. longer based solely on imitation. it has started its own Asian Infra- is a professor at Harvard shall Plan in 1948, created NATO China’s economy is about two- The US also has demographic However, a successful Western structure Investment Bank and University and author of in 1949, led a UN coalition that thirds that of the US, and an even strengths. Seven of the world’s response will depend upon steps its Belt and Road Initiative of Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR fought in Korea in 1950, and in smaller fraction if Europe, Japan, 15 largest economies will face a taken at home. international infrastructure proj- to Trump (Oxford University 1960, signed a new security treaty Australia and other Western allies shrinking workforce over the In short, the US and the West ects that some see as an economic Press, 2020). with Japan. are included. next decade and a half, but the hold high cards in this poker offensive. China has not prac-

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BY GRAHAM T. ALLISON JR. gic rationale for a “rivalry partner- ship” in which they would simul- taneously compete and cooper- ould China and the US ate? The two nations will inevi- be stumbling down the tably be fierce rivals in economic Cpath Germany and the production and trade, advanced United Kingdom took at the technology, military capabilities, beginning of the last century? forming alliances and alignments The possibility will strike many and demonstrating how govern- readers as inconceivable. But we ments can best meet the needs should remember that when we of their citizens. But at the same say something is “inconceivable,” time, there are other arenas in this is a claim not about what is which neither can ensure its most possible in the world, but rather vital national interest of survival about what our limited minds without serious cooperation can imagine. from the other. These include My answer to the question of not only avoiding war, especially whether we are sleepwalking nuclear war, but also tackling toward war is “yes.” The follow- climate change to sustain a bio- ing is a summary of my argument sphere in which human beings in four tweets: First, the risks of can live, preventing the spread of war in the decade ahead are eerily the means and motives for mega- similar to those faced by Germany terrorism, containing pandemics and the UK a century ago. Second, and managing global financial the primary driver in what crises to avoid great depressions became World War I and what – and their political consequences. could become World War III was Thus, while intense rivalry is ines- clearly identified by Thucydides capable, if the brute fact is that 2,500 years ago in his analysis of neither can kill the other with- the great war between Athens and out simultaneously committing Sparta. Third, preventing war in suicide, intense competition this case will require strategic becomes a strategic necessity. imagination far beyond anything And as this great drama is seen in Washington or Beijing to unfolding, where is Europe? Miss- date. And fourth, the potentially ing in action. Collectively, the most helpful but missing actor in European nations have the heft this picture is Europe. and sense to play a significant, At the beginning of the 20th constructive role. But the prospect century, few could imagine what that Europe will punch anywhere the future held. In January 1914, near its weight seems dimmer the world’s richest man, Andrew SHUTTERSTOCK.COM/VKILIKOV today than at this time last year. As Carnegie, sent New Year's greet- Wolfgang Münchau of the Finan- ings to leaders around the world, cial Times wrote recently, Europe announcing a new era of perma- increasingly seems resigned to nent peace. “International Peace” becoming a “playground of con- would, he proclaimed, “prevail flicting interests.” through the Great Powers agree- The Thucydides Trap The 5G race provides a telling ing to settle their disputes by example. While the performance International Law, the pen thus by the US in this race has been proving mightier than the sword.” Beyond trade: the confrontation between the US and China pathetic – it has no major sup- One of the most influential books plier of 5G systems – Europe has of the decade, The Great Illusion, two entries: Nokia and Ericsson. published in 1910, sold over two While they technically pose, or million copies. In it, Norman ating toward what could be the parity, the metric both the CIA as the predominant power in East Since the publication of Destined at least could pose, a serious chal- Angell explained that war was a grandest collision of all time. and the International Monetary Asia in his lifetime. Unless the US for War: Can America and China lenge to Huawei and Samsung, the cruel “illusion,” as the cost of war One plausible candidate for the Fund use to compare national redefines itself to settle for some- Escape Thucydides’s Trap? three US is focused on putting sticks would exceed any benefits the spark to war is Taiwan. As Tai- economies). Although China faces thing less than being “Number 1,” years ago, I’ve been searching for in the spokes of Huawei wheels victor could hope to achieve. wanese watch carefully what has many internal challenges, there Americans will increasingly find what I call “avenues of escape.” I and European regulators appear How then could the assassina- been happening in Hong Kong, are more reasons to expect this China’s rise discombobulating am now most actively exploring more concerned with maintaining tion of an archduke in Sarajevo they have grown less and less basic economic trend to continue and push back. This is not just a possibility that would com- what they regard as appropriate spark a conflagration so all- interested in living in China’s than to bet that it will stop soon. another case of what Washington bine President John F. Kennedy’s competition between Nokia and encompassing that it required party-driven autocracy. The idea With four times as many citizens now calls “great-power competi- insight about a “world safe for Ericsson than with finding ways historians to create an entirely of one nation under two sys- as the United States, if Chinese tion,” but a classic Thucydidean diversity” and a Chinese concept to assist them in the global race. new category of conflict called tems as a mantle for sustaining workers become as productive as rivalry in which each sees the of “rivalry partners.” All the while, China’s champion, “world war”? The short answer its autonomy is now dead. If, in Portuguese workers today (that is, other as a threat to its identity. After having survived the Cuban Huawei, is plowing ahead. is: the Thucydides Trap. When riding the surge created by the half as productive as Americans), European hopes that this is Missile Crisis, and just five months If an evil genius intended to jolt a rising power threatens to dis- overwhelming vote against the China’s GDP will double that of just a passing Trumpian detour before he was assassinated, Ken- Europeans from their slumber in place a ruling power, alarm bells mainland earlier this year, the the US. are an illusion. Across the Ameri- nedy proposed a major revision of order to motivate a serious effort should sound: extreme danger Taiwanese government were to The impact of this tectonic shift can political spectrum, attitudes America’s strategy in the Cold War. to get its act together, it is hard to ahead. Thucydides explained this make a sharp move toward greater is felt in every dimension of every toward China have hardened. A To avoid future confrontations imagine how he could improve dangerous dynamic in the case independence, most China watch- relationship – not just between nation that Presidents Obama, that risked nuclear annihilation, on what could be referred to as of Athens’ rise to rival Sparta in ers agree Beijing would have to the US and the Soviet Union would the “Trump treatment.” Nonethe- classical Greece. In the centuries respond violently. No govern- have to accept serious constraints less, Europeans seem resigned to since then, this storyline has been ment in Beijing could survive the on their competition, and even accepting observer status as rule repeated over and over. The last “loss” of Taiwan. If the Chinese compromise. They would have to takers, not rule makers. In that 500 years saw 16 cases in which response included a 21st-century China will most likely find a way to live and let live in a future, Europe will find itself fur- a rising power threatened to version of the missile tests they world of diverse political systems ther squeezed between the two displace a major ruling power. conducted in 1996 that threatened continue challenging despite diametrically opposed giants: to its east, a “systemic rival Twelve ended in war. to choke Taiwan’s lifeline of ships values and ideologies. In a bit of promoting alternative models of As Thucydides explained, the delivering oil, food and other America’s accustomed rhetorical jiu-jitsu, Kennedy stood governance,” as the European objective reality of a rising pow- essential supplies, how would the Woodrow Wilson’s long-standing Commission recently described er’s impact on a ruling power is US respond? position at the top of call for a “world safe for democ- China, and to its west, what some bad enough. But in the real world, Most observers have failed to racy” on its head and insisted that Europeans are coming to regard these objective facts are per- grasp the significance of the tec- every pecking order the priority in the Cold War going as an abusive spouse. ceived subjectively – magnifying tonic shift in the relative power forward would have to be to build In last year’s issue of The Secu- misperceptions and multiplying of the US and China in the three a “world safe for diversity.” In that rity Times, Theo Sommer noted: miscalculations. When one com- decades since the end of the Cold future, the two rivals could com- “The geopolitical rivalry between petitor “knows” what the other’s War. Never before in history has the US and China, but between Bush and Clinton called its “stra- pete vigorously – yet peacefully – the US and the People’s Republic “real motive” is, every action is a rising power ascended so far, each of them and other nations. tegic partner” is now seen by all to demonstrate whose values and of China is not going to end. It interpreted in ways that confirm so fast and in so many different In Asia, the economic balance of as a “strategic adversary.” Instruc- system of governance could best will be the dominant element of that bias. dimensions. To paraphrase former power has tilted especially dra- tively, Democratic candidates for meet the needs of its citizens. international politics in the 21st Under such conditions, the Czech President Václav Havel, matically in China’s favor. As the president are scrambling to find A millennium earlier, the Song century.” The question this year competitors become hostage to things have happened so fast that world’s largest exporter and sec- a way to get to the right of Trump emperor, having found his troops is whether Europe must remain, third-party provocations and even we have not yet had time to be ond-largest importer, China is the on China. unable to defeat a northern Mon- in Sommer’s words, “a helpless accidents. An event as bizarre astonished. top trading partner of every other Does this mean that war – real golian tribe, the Liao, negotiated and clueless bystander.” As we and otherwise inconsequential as The US share of global GDP major Asian country, including US bloody war – is inevitable? No, the Treaty of Chanyuan that watch the US and China stumble the assassination of an archduke has fallen from almost one-half allies. And as an aggressive practi- most certainly not. Four of the established a “rivalry partner- toward a dangerous collision, forces one or the other principal in 1950, to one-quarter at the end tioner of economic statecraft, Bei- sixteen cases in the Thucydides ship.” The two parties agreed anyone who cares about inter- protagonist to respond. Doing of the Cold War in 1991, to one- jing does not hesitate to use the Trap case file ended without war. to compete ruthlessly in some national peace and security must so triggers a vicious spiral of seventh today. (Although GDP is leverage this provides, squeezing Nonetheless, if American and Chi- arenas and cooperate intensely fervently hope not. actions and reactions that drag not everything, it does form the countries such as the Philippines nese leaders settle for statecraft in others. In an unusual version both toward an outcome neither substructure of power in relations and South Korea when they resist as usual, we should expect history of Chinese tributary relations, the wanted. among nations.) In 1991, China Chinese demands. A similar story as usual. The goal in recognizing treaty required the Song to pay GRAHAM T. ALLISON JR. If Thucydides were watching barely appeared on any interna- is emerging in Europe. how devastating that war would tribute to the Liao, who in turn is a professor at the John today, he would say that China tional league table. But in the past China will most likely con- be, and understanding how such agreed to invest that payment in F. Kennedy School of and the US are right on script, generation, its GDP has soared: tinue challenging America’s rivalries have so often ended in economic, scientific and technical Government at Harvard. In 2017, he published Destined for competing to show which can from 20 percent of the US level accustomed position at the top catastrophe, is to motivate strate- development in Song China. War: Can America and China best exemplify the role of the in 1991 to 120 percent today (as of every pecking order. If Xi suc- gists and statesmen to rise above Could American and Chinese Escape Thucydides’s Trap? rising and ruling power, acceler- measured by purchasing power ceeds, China will displace the US history. statesmen construct a new strate- 8 The German Times – Politics March 2020

FROM COLD WAR Russia is benefiting from its new confrontation with the West, but murkier times may lie ahead

Syria. Similar moves are being 3. Trump really does want to do further damage to the invest- fully address the China relation- BY IAN BREMMER made in parts of sub-Saharan work with Putin, though the US ment climate as the US ads more ship over the long term. Russia’s Africa, and with Russian support Congress will continue to stymie sanctions. hopes for China are especially n the nearly three decades for Nicolás Maduro in Venezu- such efforts on most counts. Still, there are limits to the high at the moment – with West- since the collapse of the ela. These have increased Russia’s Trump’s presidency has not pro- impact of domestic pressures ern economic links frayed, China ISoviet Union, Russia’s rela- clout on the international stage duced the direct benefits Russian on Russian foreign policy. First, is of growing importance as an tionship with the West has – not to the level of the United leaders had obviously hoped for, growth is sluggish, but there is export market for energy and as undergone a dramatic transfor- States or China, but to a notable though Moscow has still managed macroeconomic stability – the an investor in a range of Russian mation – from establishing eco- degree nonetheless. This feat is to capitalize on Trump’s foreign budget has been running surpluses, sectors, particularly oil and gas. nomic ties the 1990s to being made more impressive by the fact policy – cementing its role as currency reserves have been But the power dynamic is even partners in the wake of 9/11 to that while the US and China are intermediary in Syria being the replenished in recent years and starker since the days when Putin once again being adversaries in the two largest economies in the most obvious example. Also note- stand at over $550 billion, inflation first steered Russia toward a revi- the post-Bush era. There’s plenty world, Russia ranks 11th, behind worthy is the fact that US-China has been under control, and the sionist foreign policy. The imbal- of blame to go around, not least countries like Brazil and Canada. tensions have pushed Moscow currency has been fairly stable. In ance will grow even stronger as the absence of even considering Russia will continue looking for and Beijing closer together. Deep- other words, the government does China continues its geopolitical true reconstruction of the former such low-risk, high-reward oppor- rooted antipathy toward the Rus- not face an economic emergency, ascent. Russia’s approach at pres- Soviet states after collapse. But tunities for intervention. Putin is sian government remains biparti- and it is in a better position than ent is to accommodate China’s many of these shifts have to do also primed to take advantage of san in Congress, and US lawmak- in the past to deal with an exter- growing influence in Central Asia with the political trajectory of the continued souring of US–EU ers have built up ways to constrain nal shock. Longer term, there are and even in countries like Ukraine one Vladimir Putin, who has relations during the Trump era. Trump’s ability to unilaterally legitimate concerns about stagnant and Belarus. China, for its part, is gone from relative unknown to Which brings us to… change US policy toward Russia, growth, low foreign direct invest- happy to avoid stepping on Rus- the longest-serving leader of as demonstrated by the 2017 ment and demographic challenges. sia’s toes, even as it becomes more Russia since Joseph Stalin. And 2. Europe increasingly desires Countering America’s Adversar- But the short-term state of affairs influential in what Russia views with Putin’s announcement a return to some sense of nor- ies Through Sanctions legislation. is stable enough that Putin feels he as its historic sphere of influence. earlier this year of forthcoming malcy. That will be difficult given Trump can talk about improving can avoid undertaking any major Over time, that Chinese presence constitutional changes, he has just how much division there cur- the relationship all he wants, but reforms. will create tensions with Moscow, signaled that he has no intention rently is within the EU, Germa- it is hard for him to actually trans- Second, public opinion is not and there’s only so much Russia of relinquishing power when ny’s weakening leadership of the late that into policy. Take NATO the key driver of foreign policy will be able to do about that. his term ends in 2024, even if he EU and, of course, Trump. All of as another example. Both Putin decisions. Putin has prioritized does give up the presidency. which plays into Russia’s hands. and Trump have reservations geopolitics over economics, at In short, Russia will remain an With all that in mind, here are Since 2014, Europe has been about the organization – albeit for least when it comes to what he opportunist on the international five key trends likely to shape the rigorously debating the proper much different reasons – but Con- identifies as core interests, and he stage despite the risks of blow- “hot peace” between Russia and response to Russian actions in gress has already made attempts is not going to change course in back from citizens at home and the West in the coming years. Ukraine and other malign activi- through legislation to limit what response to polls. There are also the West more generally. But a ties in Europe (election interfer- Trump can do to undermine the some foreign policy priorities that European continent looking 1. Russia will continue to seek ence, targeted or attempted kill- security alliance even further. will remain important enough for to stabilize itself and its greater tactical wins it can score inter- ings of émigrés). There are many Both Trump and Putin have Putin to risk Western punishment, surroundings will offer Moscow nationally, enabled by a US pull- states (Hungary, Italy and, most learned the hard way that having such as maintaining Russian influ- an opportunity to improve rela- back from global leadership and recently, France) that want to strong leader-to-leader relations ence in Ukraine and Belarus. tions with a significant part of the inevitable foreign policy missteps forge closer ties with Moscow, is far from enough when at least Going forward, the key ques- West, even as relations between taken by the West more generally. while Poland, the Baltic States one of those leaders hails from tion will be how Putin transi- the US and Russia remain chilly. Putin has been quick to take and the UK have been far more a robust and still-functioning tions his power post-2024. He is And while the current standoff advantage of the US pullback hostile toward a rapprochement. democracy. establishing a system in which between the US and China has from areas where it once played Germany has shown signs of he can remain highly influential pushed Moscow and Beijing a dominant role. It has also taken both arguments – German Chan- 4. Russia is struggling with even after he (presumably) leaves closer together, Russia should be advantage of those cases in which cellor Angela Merkel was instru- growing challenges at home, but the presidency that year. How concerned about the long-term Western powers have not fully mental in maintaining sanctions Putin’s foreign policy victories are and indeed if he disperses power trajectory of that relationship committed themselves (e.g., Syria against Russia after its land grab not helping. remains unanswered by the recent – if Russia isn’t careful, its big- and Libya). This also includes in Ukraine, but Germany has also Polling in 2019 has shown that changes. But foreign policy and gest challenger in this era of “hot Ukraine, though there the cost been the lead advocate for the the Russian public wants Putin security questions may be among peace” will be coming from the to Russia has been higher in lives Nord Stream 2 pipeline. to focus more on domestic issues, the very last things he is willing to East rather than the West in just a lost, budget outlays and in terms Ultimately, European unity will including an economy that is surrender. few short years. of sanctions (more on this below). stick to sanctions, largely because producing growth of only 1 to 2 More generally, Putin has sought they are tied so closely to the percent a year. In general, there 5. Russia must increasingly opportunities to improve Russia’s specific goal of ending the war is limited domestic support for worry about being dominated position in key regions, at limited in Eastern Ukraine. Thawing ten- foreign adventures. Signs from by China – a reminder that while IAN BREMMER financial or military costs. In so sions between the EU and Russia the Kremlin suggest it has become Putin is playing the short-term is president and founder of Eurasia Group and GZERO doing, he has succeeded in rais- will necessarily be a slow process, more cautious regarding foreign game capably, he’s not playing the Media. In 2018, he published ing Russia’s profile in the Middle even if the current momentum engagements, both in terms of long-term game nearly as well. Us vs. Them: The Failure of East as a diplomatic broker, and is aimed at normalizing relations committing formal troops and The Russian government does Globalism. as an intermediary of the war in with Moscow. getting involved in tit-for-tats that not have an answer for how to TO HOT PEACE

continued from page 1 LEGAL NOTICE Party crashing

Publisher Cold War winners in the West Seventh, they see their elected to the Zeitgeist, abandoned old the Greens on climate policy Laschet has dared to entertain Detlef W. Prinz and continue to feel patronized representatives as more inter- principles and set out in search and gender issues have simply the idea of the Greens as poten- to this day. ested in fighting over status of the so-called center. As a not gained purchase. Today’s tial coalition partners and has Executive Editor Theo Sommer Second, the working popula- and positions than focusing on result, the very thing that con- voters have turned to the origi- always endorsed Merkel’s refu- tion has a sense that the burdens content. These leaders project troversial and far-sighted poli- nal source of those issues, the gee policy. And finally, Norbert Editor-in-Chief Peter H. Koepf and jointly produced earnings in a preoccupation with securing ticians from the last century, Greens, who are already harbor- Röttgen has entered the race. their economies are no longer their own privileges and digging such as Franz Joseph Strauss, ing hopes of having a voice in The boyish-looking 55-year old Senior Editor being fairly divided in a globalized moats around their own posts, had warned of has come to pass: the next coalition government, hails from the liberal wing of Lutz Lichtenberger society that they see as beholden preferring to hide behind rheto- a party in Germany has emerged in 2021 at the latest, and perhaps the party and was once one of English Language Editor solely to the laws of business and ric rather than to speak plainly. to fill the gap left open on the even the top spot in the country. Merkel’s first lieutenants. He then Jonathan Lutes competition. Eighth, they are frustrated right. And this phenomenon is The SPD is moored at 15 per- fell out of favor and remade him- Art Director Third, every fourth worker is when promising and committed only partly a consequence of the cent in the polls. If the CDU self as a foreign policy expert. Just Paul M. Kern at risk of poverty and a quarter young professionals who dare to refugee crisis. wishes to avoid this fate, it will like Laschet, Röttgen is expected Layout of pensioners are barely making raise their voice to speak their On the other side of the have to make a directional deci- to welcome working together Johanna Trapp ends meet. minds and defend their ideals center, the past several years sion: Who will lead the party with the Greens. Gordon Martin Fourth, a significant number are degraded by the establish- have made it clear that the SPD and who will vie to be chancel- Still, at the 2020 Munich Secu- Publishing House of Germans have the impression ment. no longer knows where it stands lor? rity Conference, even Laschet Times Media GmbH Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 that their worries and fears are People who harbor such feel- and to whom it owes allegiance. The focus is on three candi- dared attack the chancellor for 10963 Berlin brushed aside and that the realms ings are turning their backs on The people it should be speak- dates. Friedrich Merz, a man her hesitant stance regarding Tel.: +49 30 21505-400 of media and politics are domi- the established parties. But is all ing to are those voters who with close ties to the business Macron’s plan for a common Printed in Berlin by nated by issues they consider to of this really true? And if so, how actually keep Germany’s social world, has challenged Merkel on European security policy, noting Dogan Media GmbH be of secondary importance. can the established parties win democracy functioning with several occasions in the past 20 that “in the era of Helmut Kohl, An der Brücke 20-22 Fifth, they have the feeling that back all of these disappointed their hard work: the manual years. He is said to have a sig- the major European initiatives 64546 Mörfelden-Walldorf when they disagree with prevail- and disaffected voters? and clerical workers and their nificant fan base and could win came from Germany.” The German Times is a registered ing narratives, they are labeled The two historical big-tent families, the people who pay back voters from the AfD with Weimar or Trumpistan? The trademark of Times Media GmbH. right-wing extremists and rele- popular parties, the SPD and their rent but can hardly make a his right-wing conservatism. CDU faces a crucial test. www.times-media.de gated to the corner of the class- the CDU, have become soulless living despite working full-time. Also in the running is the down- Press deadline room like a scolded pupil. vessels. The CDU has misplaced Instead, the SPD has been serv- to-earth Armin Laschet, the cur- March 11, 2020 Sixth, when using terms such as its traditional beliefs and forgot- ing merely to help fill the pock- rent minister president of North PETER H. KOEPF “homeland” or “patriotism,” they ten its conservative, bourgeois ets of those individuals the party Rhine-Westphalia and someone is editor-in-chief of are also suspected of being right- raison d’être. The Christian used to disparage as “capital- considered to be both a moder- The German Times. wing nationalists. conservatives have surrendered ists.” Their attempts to imitate ate and a moderator. In the past, March 2020 The German Times – Politics 9 IMAGO IMAGES/ZUMA PRESS IMAGES/ZUMA IMAGO

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during a press conference in Tehran in February, with the current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (r) and his predecessor Ruhollah Khomeini (l) looking over the president’s shoulder.

At a minimum, this would buy BY ROBERT MALLEY time, avert a UN showdown and perhaps press the pause button he United States and until the US presidential elections Iran have been on a pre- The other quid pro quo in November. Although Solei- Tdictable collision course mani’s killing has significantly since the Trump administra- The conundrum of the Washington-Tehran stalemate soured the atmosphere, Iran and tion withdrew from the Joint the US might also seek to build on Comprehensive Plan of Action the successful exchange of detain- (JCPOA) in May 2018. The driv- ees last December and pursue ers of this heightened tension additional discussion on releas- are two fundamentally clashing in particular by precipitating a specifically, and international US soldiers at the Ain al-Assad mechanism (DRM) that could see ing US and other foreign nation- and self-reinforcing approaches: substantial drop in Iran’s vital oil engagement more broadly, were base. While the guns have since the case eventually referred to als held by Iran on highly dubious Washington is convinced that a exports. strategic mistakes foretold and gone silent, that salvo is unlikely the UN Security Council. Should charges. policy of “maximum pressure” But the sanctions have otherwise now seemingly fulfilled. But just as to be the end of Iran’s or its allies’ that transpire, and the pre-JCPOA Now that the E3 (France, Ger- will prompt Iran to succumb to failed. They have so far produced Washington’s approach has failed response, and the possibility of international sanctions return to many and the UK) have triggered its demands – and should such neither the greater regional sta- to yield Iranian concessions, Iran’s further direct or indirect retalia- force, it would herald the agree- the DRM, they will likely be pres- pressure fail, the US response bility Washington seeks nor the brinkmanship failed to deliver a tion against US or allied targets ment’s collapse. The consequence sured by the US to take the case should apply even greater pres- more stringent nuclear constraints favorable breakthrough. remains significant. would be rolling the clock back a to the Security Council as quickly sure. Conversely, Tehran believes it has targeted. Instead, they have At the regional level, tensions Meanwhile, Iran has been decade and reviving discussions as possible, not least with the end that the most effective reaction to resulted in heightened tension have risen steadily over the past steadily and methodically breach- on whether military action by the of a UN arms embargo looming pressure is counter-pressure – a and an Iranian nuclear program year. Attacks against oil tankers ing its JCPOA commitments: US and/or Israel is necessary to in October, unless UN sanctions policy of calibrated escalations on increasingly unshackled from the in the Gulf in May and June pre- breaking the 300kg cap on its contain a nuclear program the are re-imposed. That makes it all the nuclear and regional fronts JCPOA’s key restraints. Moreover, ceded the brazen attack against stockpiles of enriched uranium, JCPOA had successfully kept in the more imperative for the E3 to to demonstrate it will not fold and despite episodic and at times Aramco’s Abqaiq-Khurais facilities upping enrichment rates beyond check. use the coming period to engage under duress, but instead raise serious unrest, the Islamic Repub- in Saudi Arabia in September. Iran the deal’s 3.67-percent limit, With the region on a knife-edge, Tehran, seek to the greatest extent the stakes. lic remains in full control at home. has denied involvement but is sus- activating advanced centrifuges, the nuclear deal increasingly at possible to provide sanctions relief The dangers of this standoff For the first year of the US “max- pected in each of these incidents. reviving enrichment activities risk and the prospects for direct or economic reprieve, get Iran to were fully evident in late Decem- imum pressure” campaign, Iran’s diplomacy between Tehran and resume full compliance and, pos- ber 2019 and early January 2020, approach was to wait it out and Washington looking increasingly sibly, to agree to the initiation of when the two sides came to the hope that the JCPOA’s remain- The burden is now on dim, third-party intervention may broader negotiations. Consider- brink of war after the US killed ing parties – France, Germany, well be the only way to break the ing how close the region came Major General Qassim Soleimani, the UK, Russia and China – could Europe and others to seek impasse between the two sides. to a conflagration, Iran and its head of Iran’s Islamic Revolution- muster the economic dividends at Efforts by French President Gulf rivals – Saudi Arabia and the ary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force. the core of the agreement’s quid a tactical détente between Emmanuel Macron to fashion a United Arab Emirates in particu- A more costly confrontation was pro quo. That strategy began to US-Iran détente at the UN Gen- lar – ought to build on initial steps avoided this time, but the underly- shift in May 2019, as the burden the two rivals eral Assembly in September 2019 in parallel and develop diplomatic ing dynamics that led to the preci- of US sanctions weighed more stumbled at the last minute, but engagement of their own. pice remain unchanged. heavily, and Europe failed to October saw the beginning of at its bunkered Fordow site and they revealed the contours of a Finally, Tehran should recognize The burden is now on European fashion a financial lifeline. Facing an uptick in rocket attacks against running more centrifuges than potential arrangement: economic that the combination of quashing and other third-party mediators to what it considered an intolerable Iraqi military bases hosting US the deal allows. However, in key reprieve for Iran in exchange for dissent, avoiding major reforms seek a tactical détente between the status quo, the Iranians adopted and other international troops, respects there may be less to these Tehran’s compliance with the and playing a perilous nuclear and two rivals that reduces regional their own version of “maximum one of which, on Dec. 27, resulted breaches than meets the eye. For JCPOA and regional de-escala- regional game of chicken is unlikely tensions and averts a renewed pressure”: provocations on the in the death of a US contractor in example, uranium enrichment tion. to prove sustainable. Sanctions crisis over Iran’s nuclear program. regional and nuclear fronts to Kirkuk. Events then quickly took a levels are still well short of the Soleimani’s killing likely pre- have exacerbated many of Iran’s Since pulling out of the nuclear underscore the fact that Washing- turn for the worse. The US struck pre-JCPOA 20-percent level, and cludes the already unlikely political and economic problems, agreement, the Trump administra- ton’s siege will not be met with- bases of the Iran-backed Iraqi rigorous inspections by the Inter- presidential summit the White but they did not create them. Tack- tion has articulated a sweeping set out a cost, and to prompt greater paramilitary group, Kataib Hez- national Atomic Energy Agency House was keen to showcase ling the endemic ills of corruption of demands for what should take urgency toward stabilizing the bollah, claiming it was responsible continue apace. In other words, and thus reduces the scope of and mismanagement, refraining its place. The list is long, ambi- JCPOA by means of an economic for the Kirkuk operation. This led Iran has been staggering its non- what could be agreed upon. But from adding fuel to regional fires tious and wholly unrealistic. It reprieve. to a mob attack against the US compliance with the likely intent a more modest arrangement and avoiding brash moves that includes, inter alia, an end to all From Tehran’s perspective, the embassy compound in Baghdad. of jolting greater efforts to salvage remains plausible. In particular, could see it increasingly isolated uranium enrichment, ballistic mis- nuclear and regional escalations Just a few days later, the US killed the agreement, rather than aban- more vigorous European steps to financially and diplomatically may sile proliferation and Iranian sup- are thus two sides of the same Major General Qassim Soleimani doning the deal outright in pursuit operationalize the Instrument for be a tall order. But the alternative port for its various local allies and coin. They are gambits aimed at – one of the Islamic Republic’s of weapons capabilities. Support of Trade Exchanges with could be considerably worse. partners across the region. Uni- breaking the financial strangle- senior military officials and mas- Nevertheless, the JCPOA’s Iran could buoy trade, be supple- lateral US sanctions have served hold placed by sanctions, which termind of its network of proxies three Western European signa- mented through credit lines for as the primary tool for securing have in turn fueled economic and and allies across the Middle East. tories concluded they could no Iranian humanitarian goods and ROBERT MALLEY these concessions and succeeded political discontent within Iran On Jan. 7, Iran responded with a longer act as if the deal were still go hand-in-hand with a resump- is president and CEO of the in subjecting the Islamic Republic and strengthened the hand of barrage of missile strikes against respected by Iran and, on Jan. 14, tion of Iranian adherence to the International Crisis Group. to considerable financial strain, hardliners for whom the JCPOA Iraqi military bases, injuring 64 launched the dispute resolution deal. 10 The German Times – Politics March 2020

THE WORLD AHEAD OF US

WE’RE CLEANING UP OUR 100% FREE FROM ACT. HEAVY FUEL OIL

Worldwide from July 2020, our ships will exclusively use marine gas oil with a maximum sulphur content of only 0.1 %. We are thus going above and beyond the statutory provisions and – thanks to forgoing heavy fuel oil – are reducing the sulphur emissions of our fleet by 80 %. In this way, we are setting standards for the cruise industry and protecting that which fascinates both us and our guests.

Catalytic converter technology, cold ironing and forgoing heavy fuel oil. More about this and other environ- mental protection measures at www.hl-cruises.com. March 2020 The German Times – 75 Years of Peace 11

SHUTTERSTOCK.COM/JULIANO GALVAO GOMES Rail entrance to the concentration camp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Our responsibility does not expire “Blessed be the Lord for enabling me to be here at this day”

ment. I read their names. I hear their stories. And stretched out to us, for the new trust given to us by fabric of the Federal Republic of Germany from day THE SPEECH GIVEN BY GERMAN I bow in deepest sorrow. Samuel and Rega, Ida and people in Israel and across the world, for Jewish life one. But it tests us here and now. PRESIDENT FRANK-WALTER STEINMEIER Vili were human beings. flourishing in Germany. My soul is moved by the This Germany will only live up to itself, if it lives AT YAD VASHEM And this also must be said here: The perpetrators spirit of reconciliation, this spirit which opened up up to its historical responsibility. We fight anti- were human beings. They were Germans. Those a new and peaceful path for Germany and Israel, for Semitism! We resist the poison that is nationalism! hat a blessing, what a gift, it is for me who murdered, those who planned and helped in Germany, Europe and the countries of the world. We protect Jewish life! We stand with Israel! to be able to speak to you here today at the murdering, the many who silently toed the line: The Eternal Flame at Yad Vashem does not go Here at Yad Vashem, I renew this promise before WYad Vashem. Here at Yad Vashem burns They were Germans. out. Germany’s responsibility does not expire. We the eyes of the world. And I know that I am not the Eternal Flame in remembrance of the victims of The industrial mass murder of six million Jews, want to live up to our responsibility. By this, dear alone. Today we join together to say: No to anti- the Shoah. This place reminds us of their suffering. the worst crime in the history of humanity, it was friends, you should measure us. Semitism! No to hatred! The suffering of millions. And it reminds us of their committed by my countrymen. The terrible war, I stand before you, grateful for this miracle of rec- From the horror of Auschwitz, the world learned lives – each individual life. which cost far more than 50 million lives, it origi- onciliation, and I wish I could say that our remem- lessons once before. The nations of the world built This place remembers Samuel Tytelman, a keen nated from my country. brance has made us immune to evil. an order of peace, founded upon human rights and swimmer who won competitions for Maccabi Seventy-five years after the liberation of Aus- Yes, we Germans remember. But sometimes it seems international law. We Germans are committed to Warsaw, and his little sister Rega, who helped her chwitz, I stand before you all as President of Ger- as though we understand the past better than the this order and we want to defend it, with all of you. mother prepare the family meal for Sabbath. many – I stand here laden with the heavy, historical present. The spirits of evil are emerging in a new Because this we know: Peace can be destroyed, and This place remembers Ida Goldish and her three- burden of guilt. Yet at the same time, my heart is guise, presenting their anti-Semitic, racist, authoritar- people can be corrupted. year-old son Vili. In October, they were deported filled with gratitude for the hands of the survivors ian thinking as an answer for the future, a new solution Esteemed Heads of State and Government, I am from the Chisinau ghetto. In the bitter cold of Janu- to the problems of our age. I wish I could say that we grateful that together we make this commitment ary, Ida wrote her last letter to her parents: “I regret Germans have learnt from history once and for all. today: A world that remembers the Holocaust. A from the very depth of my soul that, on departing, I But I cannot say that when hatred is spreading. I world without genocide. did not realize the importance of the moment, [...] cannot say that when Jewish children are spat on in “Who knows if we will ever hear again the magical that I did not hug you tightly, never releasing you the schoolyard, I cannot say that when crude anti- sound of life? Who knows if we can weave ourselves from my arms.” Semitism is cloaked in supposed criticism of Israeli into eternity – who knows?” PICTURE ALLIANCE / PHOTOSHOT Germans deported them. Germans burned num- policy. I cannot say that when only a thick wooden Salmen Gradowski wrote these lines in Auschwitz bers on their forearms. Germans tried to dehuman- door prevents a right-wing terrorist from causing a and buried them in a tin can under a crematorium. ize them, to reduce them to numbers, to erase all massacre, a bloodbath in a synagogue in the city of Here at Yad Vashem they are woven into eternity: memory of them in the extermination camps. Halle on Yom Kippur. Salmen Gradowski, Samuel and Rega Tytelman, Ida They did not succeed. Of course, our age is a different age. The words and Vili Goldish and so many others. They were Samuel and Rega, Ida and Vili were human beings. are not the same. The perpetrators are not the all murdered. Their lives were lost to unfettered And as human beings, they live on in our memory. same. But it is the same evil. hatred. But our remembrance of them will defeat Yad Vashem gives them, as it says in the Book of And there remains only one answer: Never again! the abyss. And our actions will defeat hatred. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at the Isaiah, “a monument and a name.” Fifth World Holocaust Forum “Remembering the Nie wieder! By this, I stand. For this, I hope. I, too, stand before this monument as a human Holocaust: Fighting Anti-Semitism,” Yad Vashem That is why there cannot be an end to remem- “Blessed be the Lord for enabling me to be here being – and as a German. I stand before their monu- in Jerusalem, Jan. 23, 2020 brance. This responsibility was woven into the very at this day.” History is not a weapon Germany’s president delivered a valuable and nuanced speech in the Bundestag

remembrance for a younger generation. This new German Bundestag was beyond question. He also Merkel. This was the case, he argued, even though BY WOLFGANG BENZ generation wants to know what the past has to do pointed out that there are, in fact, non-democratic she had deep reservations about the policies of the with their lives today, he explained, and they are forces present in Parliament today. Steinmeier noted current Israeli government and even disliked the he speech given by German President Frank- right to ask the question. that völkisch and nativist ways of thinking, stagnant prime minister. Still, he noted, there could be no Walter Steinmeier in the Bundestag on the It is now widely accepted that the way to reach nationalism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism are on doubt about her pro-Israeli stance. T2020 Day of Remembrance for the Victims subsequent generations is not by erecting more the rise again, and that a new wave of politicians is Of course, a former Israeli ambassador can say of National Socialism was notable for three reasons: memorials. This fact is well-known among those now slogging the very phrases that led to catastro- many things that others might no longer have the it was moving, it represented the very best of what who are now calling for new forms of approaching phe in the 1930s. courage to utter for fear of being tagged an anti- statesmanship can achieve and it delivered rhetoric and processing history, rather than standing idly by In the most important message of his speech, Semite. This label has long been the ultima ratio that was entirely fitting for the occasion. Instead and watching the emergence of a new nationaliza- Steinmeier warned that history must not be allowed used by excited moralists, by those individuals suf- of limiting himself to the well-worn ritual of utter- tion of memory. to become a weapon. This implies that we should fering from a justified degree of shame and guilt, ing the words “Never again!,” Steinmeier spoke of Of course, the erection of historical memorials as consider it counterproductive if and when anti- by those naïve and malicious sectarians hoping for Germany’s friendship with Israel and his gratitude reminders of the past and warnings about the present Semitism is used as the ultimate reproach by one reconciliation, and by those who demand blind, for the Israeli President’s presence in the Bundestag remains a fully honorable act. This is especially true person to silence another. Indeed, the invocation of unconditional allegiance to Israel. Any real friend to on that day. in Berlin, the city in which the horrors that befell the the term “anti-Semitism” has become a thought-ter- Israel – a country that faces threats from many sides His commemoration also included remembrance civilian population of almost all European nations in minating cliché in the struggle for sovereignty over at once – would do well to wish it supporters wiser of other victims of National Socialism – groups that the 20th century were planned and set forth. the politico-cultural narrative and correct political than such zealots. had either been neglected or perhaps deliberately If such monuments are necessary for the sake of behavior of today. Steinmeier’s speech on the occasion of the 75th omitted from mention in decades of commemora- expressing emotion and responsibility, however, Justified criticism of the politics of Israeli govern- anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz was tions in the Bundestag: homosexual victims who they must also be accompanied by a corresponding ments is not anti-Semitism; it is an obligation born also reassuring. He insisted that memory should had waited years to be acknowledged; victims of the site of learning, information and a cognitive debate, of friendship. This is precisely what former German not be instrumentalized, that politicians must not other Nazi genocide against the Sinti and Roma; the where the full extent of the crimes of German occu- President Johannes Rau once said at an international be allowed to decree history and that historiogra- sick and disabled exterminated under the cynical pation can be documented and experienced. There anti-Semitism conference in Berlin – to thunderous phy must comprise freedom and open discussion title of “euthanasia”; and those individuals murdered is thus far no such center of information and debate. applause. between historians. for being “anti-social” or “career criminals.” The most important messages contained in any Only a few days ago, Former Israeli Ambassador Steinmeier also issued a demand for education and speech can often be found in its subtleties and to Germany Avi Primor gave voice to a current the providing of information. Rather than lament nuances. Steinmeier made it clear that the accep- truth when he told the local Berlin-Brandenburg WOLFGANG BENZ is a historian and former head of the Center the fact that the last eyewitnesses to the Holo- tance and treatment of historical guilt and responsi- broadcaster rbb that today’s good German-Israeli for Research on Anti-Semitism at TU Berlin. caust will soon be gone, he called for a new form of bility among democratically minded members of the relationship could be credited to Chancellor Angela 12 The German Times – 75 Years of Peace March 2020 PICTURE ALLIANCE/AKG-IMAGES

All quiet on the western front: A US soldier from the 12th Armored Division guards a group of Wehrmacht soldiers after their surrender. PICTURE ALLIANCE/ULLSTEIN BILD PICTURE ALLIANCE/ULLSTEIN

PICTURE ALLIANCE/GEORGIJ/SPUTNIK/DPA Singing a different tune: Horst-Wessel-Straße, named after a Nazi The ruins of the Reichstag: In 1985, German President Richard von Weizsäcker declared May 8, 1945, “a day of liberation.” propaganda martyr, becomes Francis Scott Key Street, named for the lyricist of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

The skin of our teeth A war’s end and a fresh start: 75 years ago, the war launched in 1939 Europe by Hitler’s wanton, megalomaniacal and criminal ego came to a close. This began a difficult period for the Germans, but those on the western side of the country’s divide would soon gain some hope, and ultimately even a bit of brazen good fortune

1949, that West Germany’s Basic day – a total of 130,000, 25,000 of For tens of thousands of Ger- • 5 million German prisoners could be had: furs, jewelry, carpets, BY THEO SOMMER Law would come into force. whom died in Dresden alone. mans, the watchword month in of war who had the good fortune furniture, artwork, food, footwear The German Reich ended in One German city after another and month out was “shovel, clear to be allowed to return home over and clothing. Hot tickets were t 2:41 in the early morn- rubble and shame. The shame was was reduced to blood and fire. rubble and stack bricks.” Anyone the course of 1945 nylon stockings, chewing gum, ing of May 7, 1945, Chief of manifest – the war of aggression, The old Germany disappeared – at any time could be enlisted to • Several million Germans who soap and sweets. Athe German General Staff the cruel reign of the Swastika the land of half-timbered villages join in the monumental project of fled west as the Russians pro- In July 1945, Erika Mann Alfred Jodl, Commander in Chief in occupied lands, the gas cham- and towns, renaissance façades, clearing debris. Former members gressed from the east, plus, after recorded the following prices: of the German Navy Hans-Georg bers of the extermination camps. baroque buildings and Prussian of the Nazi party were forced to the beginning of the forced reset- butter – 1000 marks per pound; von Friedeburg and Luftwaffe The Nazi regime had brought the Classicism was no more. take on extra shifts. tlement, millions more Germans sugar – 175 marks; coffee – 500 General Wilhelm Oxenius fixed European continent under its This was the result of Hitler’s But the brunt of all the work brutally driven from their ancestral marks; tea – 600 marks. A loaf of their signatures to the German yoke, branded as sub-humans the fanatical perseverance and his will was borne by women. In 1945, homes in East Prussia, Silesia, Hun- bread cost 30 marks. The bulk of Instrument of Surrender in a conquered peoples in the east and to destroy, which culminated in his Germany had 7.5 million more gary and Czechoslovakia the goods sold on the black market little red school house in Reims, murdered six million Jews in its proclamation: “We may go down, women than men. The war had • And, finally, millions of bomb- originated from the supply stores the headquarters of US General death factories. but we will take the world with claimed the lives of 3.7 million ing raid evacuees who now strug- of the US and British Armies. Dwight D. Eisenhower. The cer- For the most part, it was Ger- us.” But it was also the result of the German men; 12 million had gled to get back home, including This was especially true of Amer- emony was then repeated the mans, willingly or otherwise, who Allied terror strategy of bombing been taken prisoner. It was now hundreds of thousands of youths ican cigarettes, which became next day, with greater fanfare, in wreaked the horrors. For almost campaigns. up to the women to hold families who had been moved out of cities the anchor currency of the black the mess hall of a former Weh- six years, the Germans had been Sure, Hitler began it all in together. They foraged the coun- as part of the Children’s Evacua- market. One carton – 10 packs of rmacht pioneer school in Berlin- perpetrators, now they became Warsaw, Rotterdam and Coven- tryside for food and goods. They tion Program. 20 cigarettes each – cost between Karlshorst, the headquarters of victims. try: “We will obliterate their cities!” trudged into the forest with axe They were all caught up in the 1,000 and 1,500 marks; so, five Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov. By the end of the war, the Ger- But the conscious, premeditated, and saw to chop lumber. They maelstrom of chaos following or sometimes even 10 marks for Stalin had insisted on the second mans started suffering to no end merciless conversion of Germany’s gathered mushrooms and dried the end of the war in Germany, one butt was the going rate. The event to make it clear to all the – flight and expulsion, the bombing residential neighborhoods into apple rings. They queued at the where hardly one stone still rested Reichsmark, the currency in which world that the German Reich had war by the Royal Air Force and its piles of rubble by far surpassed any slaughterhouse for a boar’s head, on another, where all machines in workers and employees were paid, laid down their weapons on all US comrades, the mass raping of strategic necessity. Even Churchill a couple of horse chops or maybe all factories had come to a stop, played comparatively no role; its fronts. This time, it was Chief of civilians committed not only by expressed misgivings when he just a handful of soup bones. They where schools and universities use was more-or-less limited to the Armed Forces High Command the Red Army, prisoner-of-war and saw the aerial photographs of raised chickens and rabbits and were closed. Of the 60,000 kilo- purchasing officially rationed food Wilhelm Keitel who signed for the detention camps, humiliation and destroyed German cities. “Are we fashioned jackets for their children meters of German railroad, one- or clothing. Germans. When he departed, he deprivation, hunger and exposure animals?” he asked. “Are we taking using their fathers’ old uniforms. third was unnavigable; a half of all An illustrative example of how raised his marshal’s baton, but no was our lot. But there is no ques- this too far?” the black market functioned can one took notice of his farewell. The tion about it: German suffering The retribution turned out to be be found in a report to the US capitulation took effect at 12:01 was born directly from our own much more severe than people in Rubble was the only thing in Congress. There was a miner who a.m. Central European Time on atrocities. the US imagined, cabled General earned 60 marks a week. But he May 9. The war was over. Germany was a landscape of Lucius Clay to the US Department abundance in the world of debris also owned a hen that laid an aver- Adolf Hitler had shot himself ruins. When the survivors looked of War after the cessation of hostil- age of five eggs a week. The miner in the head ten days earlier in the at what lay around them after the ities. “Our planes and artillery have that the war had left in its wake usually ate one of the eggs himself Führerbunker of the Reich Chan- unconditional surrender of the really carried the war directly to and exchanged the other 4 for 20 cellery in Berlin. For the three Wehrmacht, they saw massive the homes of the German people.” cigarettes on the black market. As weeks following his suicide, the destruction everywhere. Rubble Theodor Eschenburg described Often enough, they forwent their rolling stock was now scrap metal. each cigarette fetched a price of German Reich was presided over was the only thing in abundance the resulting circumstances as own rations of bread to feed their Furthermore, the system of food 8 marks, the 4 eggs sold for the by a government in Flensburg in the world of debris that the follows: “The number of home- children. And these Trümmer- provisioning had more-or-less equivalent of 160 marks. Thus, on a under President Karl Dönitz, war had left in its wake: around less people was in the millions. In frauen, the rubble ladies as it were, completely broken down. weekly basis, the hen earned almost the Supreme Commander of the 400,000,000 cubic meters of it. many cases, entire families lived in have become legendary. They The only option left was to 3 times more than her owner. Navy. On May 23, all members of From the beginning of January a single room. Cellars and attics, cleared the lots and streets in every “organize” things. Countless army According to estimates at the the government were arrested by until the end of April, 1945, Brit- barracks and Quonset huts, ruins city and town across Germany. supply depots and food storage time, a half of Germany’s commer- the Western Allies. At the Mürwik ish Bomber Command alone con- and warehouses – anything was Moreover, conditions in defeated facilities were plundered in the cial revenue derived from barter- naval academy that sunny morn- ducted 79,000 sorties. In the last used as a shelter,” wrote the politi- and occupied Germany were pure bedlam immediately following the ing and the black market, and was ing, the Imperial War Flag of Ger- four months of the war, Bomber cal scientist from Tübingen. “In the chaos. Millions of people were war. After that, people just made thus beyond the reaches of state many was lowered for the last time, Command and the US Air Force inner cities where narrow streets on the move as part of the most do as best they could. Parks were regulation. It goes without saying never to be raised again. There together dropped 370,000 tons and alleyways had been the norm, comprehensive mass migration of transformed into vegetable gar- that the black market was fertile was no more Third Reich. To put of high-explosive and incendi- new paths formed over the moun- modern times: dens; a bartering economy took ground for organized crime. For it more bluntly, there was no more ary bombs over the Reich, which tains of rubble. Forsythias, lilacs • 300,000 survivors of the con- hold; people begged at farms; many normally law-abiding citi- German Reich. Supreme authority amounted to one-quarter of the and jasmine grew freely and furi- centration camps others resorted to “Fringsen” – zens, however, the black market now lay with the Allied victors. total dropped on Germany during ously in the gardens of houses that • 8.5 million forced laborers, the stealing in small quantities but with was a savior, as it allowed people At that time, no one was capable the entire war. This final four- no longer stood." former work slaves of the Third the blessing of Cologne’s Cardinal to meet needs that they could not of imagining that just a few years month phase of the war accounted According to official statistics, Reich, who were now displaced Josef Frings, who, in his New Year’s otherwise fulfill. later, a new German state would for one-quarter of the half-million the British occupation zone had persons awaiting return to their sermon, granted his flock prophy- Decades after the end of the war, appear on the scene in the form of people who were killed by Allied an average of 6.2 square meters home countries, were left to pro- lactic absolution for taking what Germans were at odds about how the Federal Republic of Germany; air attacks on German cities over of living space per person. Living vide for themselves any way they they need in order to live, particu- to classify what had happened in indeed, by accident of fate, it was the course of the war. During this quarters in the American, Russian could, which often meant plun- larly coal in times of emergency. 1945: Was it a collapse or libera- exactly four years after the capit- period, the bombing war claimed and French zones were only insig- dering the surrounding region and Bartering was a slippery slope to tion? To be sure, this question was ulation in Flensburg, on May 23, and average of 1,000 casualties a nificantly more spacious. raiding local farms the black market, where anything seldom asked during that fateful March 2020 The German Times – 75 Years of Peace 13 PICTURE ALLIANCE/ULLSTEIN BILD PICTURE ALLIANCE/ULLSTEIN

Rubble, rubble, toil and trouble: Trümmerfrauen at work cleaning up after the men

PICTURE ALLIANCE/EVERETT COLLECTION

PICTURE ALLIANCE/UNITED ARCHIVES

spring. But the answer is: both. It adox of history for all of us. But the American zone, 742,000 of radioactive material was forbidden German newspapers. The schools opposing state systems. Pariahs was a collapse as well as a liberation. why? Because we were at once which had been processed. The altogether, along with commercial and universities opened the gates became partners. The collapse was patently obvious. redeemed and destroyed.” results were that 19 percent would shipping and aviation. anew. And, most astonishing of Third, we had tremendous luck Many had survived by the skin of Redeemed and destroyed: be fired; 7 percent were recom- When the beaten Germans all, culture began to flourish again. with respect to our economy. their teeth. Countless Germans had With most Germans, the feeling mended to be fired; 25 percent looked back six months after Theaters that Goebbels had closed Instead of the planned $80 billion lost their homes, others their home- of having been destroyed out- would be fired at the sole discre- capitulation, they saw nothing in September 1944 raised their cur- in reparations, the Allies ultimately land. The cities lay in rubble. Indus- weighed the relief of redemption. tion of their employer; and in 49 but gloom and doom. Add to this tains and found audiences eager exacted only $12 billion. But to the try, commerce and manufacturing In 1985, only after 40 years had percent of cases, there was no mix the beginnings of the division for artistic and cultural experi- extent that they succeeded in their all but ceased to exist. Government passed could another president of evidence of any National Socialist of Germany into East and West. ences. Gotthold Lessing’s Nathan process of de-industrialization, stopped functioning; schools and the Federal Republic, Richard von activity. One-half of one percent While the East was not yet barri- the Wise was the favorite. At long by means of their dismantling of universities remained closed for an Weizsäcker, count on widespread of those examined were found to caded with barbed wire and walls, last, concert halls and churches per- German factories right up to 1950, extended period of time. understanding when he said: have verifiably aided the resistance. officially permitted border cross- formed works by those compos- in many cases this proved to be a To most Germans, occupation by The flaws of this process, the ings were few and far between. ers who had been outlawed by the blessing in disguise. The outdated the Allied victors at first felt more May 8 was a day of liberation. It harassment it unleashed and, Those wanting to get from East to Nazis, including Felix Mendelssohn facilities went to the victors, but the like oppression than liberation. liberated all of us from the inhu- ultimately, the solidarity it engen- West or West to East had to hoof it Bartholdy, Paul Hindemith, Arnold Germans, after the currency reform, Sure, people were liberated from manity and tyranny of the National dered induced the US military across the “green border” through Schönberg and Igor Stravinsky. were able to succeed in modern- the fear of getting killed in the next Socialist regime. Nobody will, because government to soften its approach forests and fields avoiding Soviet And museums exhibited “liber- izing their industrial sector to state- night of bombing; from the fear of of that liberation, forget the grave as early as in January 1946. The control points and patrols. Many ated art” that for 12 years had been of-art standards. Germany’s “eco- losing a husband or a son on the suffering that only started for many Law for Liberation from National were apprehended and detained banned as “degenerate.” nomic miracle” of the 1950s relied front; from the fear that the war people on May 8. But we must not Socialism and Militarism estab- while attempting to cross. One In June 1945, author and satirist heavily on this fortuitous upgrade. could go on forever. But these were regard the end of the war as the cause lished 545 German Spruchkammer woman from Thuringia – in the Erich Kästner managed to capture And there is still a fourth dimen- then replaced by new fears: How do of flight, expulsion and deprivation – or civilian tribunals – employ- Soviet zone – who wanted to visit the spirit of optimism: “If you try sion to the luck Germans experi- I survive until tomorrow? What will of freedom. The cause goes back to ing 22,000 staff that would now the Schwabenland – in the West – to describe what you’re experi- enced in the immediate postwar become of me – and of Germany? the start of the tyranny that brought deliver verdicts on the basis of the was intercepted between the towns encing all around you, only anti- period: the fact that America’s How complicit was I in all that hap- about the war. We must not separate 13 million submitted question- of Probstzella and Hof and forced to quated terms come to mind, like first successful test of an atomic pened under Hitler? Am I guilty for May 8, 1945, from Jan. 30, 1933. naires. This process concluded spend several days in a prison cell. ‘gleams of hope,’ ‘aurora,’ ‘creative bomb was on July 16, 1945, and things that I did, or thought, or tol- with 3.5 million accusations and While detained, she noticed that joy,’ ‘rush of exhilaration’ and ‘vital not six months earlier. Had “Little erated? Am I guilty for not having Immediately after the war, 950,000 trials. In the three-and- a former inhabitant of the cell had courage.’ The stomach churns but Boy” and “Fat Man” already been protested all the injustice? few Germans were in a state of a-half years of denazification carved these words into the lime- the eyes sparkle.” available, the first two targets of Those who truly felt liberated mind to entertain such weighty ending in 1948, 1,549 Germans stone wall: “Here I sit, a German The title of Thornton Wilder’s America’s nuclear arsenal would after the war were the political thoughts. Coping with everyday were found to be “major offend- imprisoned in Germany / Because I play, The Skin of Our Teeth, cap- likely have been German cities. opponents of the Nazi regime, life exhausted all of their strength; ers,” 21,600 “offenders,” 104,000 went from Germany to Germany.” tured the sentiments of most Ger- Hiroshima and Nagasaki would those who were active in the resis- coping with the past was a “luxury” “lesser offenders” and 475,000 The land reform that took effect in mans at the time. From today’s not have been incinerated and tance, the Jews, the Sinti and Roma that would only come much later. “followers.” The tribunals issued the Soviet zone in the fall of 1945 vantage point, even we Germans contaminated; it would have been and the homosexuals who were And those who brought feelings of 9,000 prison sentences, more than marked the beginning of the expro- can say that we got away lightly, Berlin, perhaps Munich, Cologne, persecuted. They all breathed a guilt upon themselves felt an extra 500,000 fines and 25,000 seizures priation of the middle class and the that is, by the skin of our teeth. Bremen – or Dresden. sigh of relief in May 1945. weight of oppression. of assets. The Soviet occupation oppression of all “bourgeois ele- First, Germany was spared from In 1945, the Germans oscillated However, all those whose naïveté In an initial wave of denazifica- zone saw 30,000 war-criminal ments,” which spurred the eventual being as fragmented as the Allies between hope and fear, the hope and idealism had led them to tion, all office holders in West Ger- trials, 200,000 Nazis banned from division of Germany. had originally contemplated. sprouting only with hesitation. A believe in Hitler experienced the many were stripped of their jobs: public service and industry, 20,000 But there were also rays of hope, While Roosevelt had imagined flyer published by the resistance end of the Third Reich as an utter 150,000 working in public service – of 40,000 – teachers fired and the which grew brighter and ever splitting the country into five or movement known as the White collapse. They became embittered and 73,000 employed in trade and delivery of 500 death sentences. more frequent. Life amid the ruins seven states, Churchill envisioned Rose had once augured that “we by the miscarriage of their illu- industry. They received neither The denazification trials were gradually began to normalize. one state in the west, one in the will forever be the people that sions, by the futility of their devo- a salary nor a pension; they were accompanied by the process of People settled in to their world of north and one in the south. The are hated and outcast by all of the tion and the hollowness of their now permitted only to do “ordi- dismantling German industry and rubble, became accustomed to the eventual division of Germany into world.” The fact that this proph- suffering – and then fully so when nary work.” Around 180,000 were the exaction of reparations by the black market and its cigarette cur- east and west, a burden born by the ecy proved wrong will forever be they toured the liberated concen- detained, sometimes for years. victorious powers. Germany was rency, resigned themselves to the Germans for 40 years, was not ulti- a credit to those men and women tration camps, as decreed by the In the second wave, denazifi- to make amends for the destruc- occupation and established new mately an element of the punitive who, 75 years ago, set out to craft a occupying powers, and saw the cation procedures resembled a tion it had wreaked from the political organizations and new peace, but rather the result of the better future for our people on the mountains of corpses; once and bureaucratic inquisition, culminat- Atlantic to the Volga. The Potsdam administrative bodies. They rolled Cold War, which began in earnest rubble and wreckage of a loathsome for all they had to relinquish the ing in the questionnaire campaign Agreement stipulated that German up their sleeves, spat into their in 1945. When the East-West con- war. Without them, we would not cold comfort that the documen- by which the Western Allies sought production would be reduced to palms and went to work. Under flict subsided, the Germans could be what we are today: not hated and tary films and photographs dis- to vet the Germans by tooth and between 50 and 55 percent of its the most adverse conditions they finally redress the division. outcast, but accepted and respected played everywhere after the war nail. The questionnaire comprised capacity in 1938, which corre- learned to develop initiatives, Second, this Cold War, as para- – esteemed not spurned. were mere phonies produced as 131 questions. It became both sponded to totals reached in the to improvise and to make ends doxical as it may sound, had its Allied propaganda. feared and ridiculed – ridiculed for bleak crisis year of 1932. Germany’s meet, while embracing humility upsides. As opposed to being fur- Theodor Heuß, who in 1949 its many pointless individual ques- primary production was to be set and accepting that life may be a ther ostracized and minimized, became the first president of West tions and feared because the future at 40 percent of the 1936 levels, long hard slog. both Germanys, ours and theirs, THEO SOMMER is the executive editor of this Germany, once described the end of many Germans hinged on the which would deplete the pharma- Already in the first fall after the rose in rank rather quickly to newspaper. He was 15 years of the war as follows: “In essence, questionnaire’s findings. ceutical industry by 80 percent. war, news bulletins published by the become something akin to guest- old when World War II came this eighth of May remains the By March 1946, 1.4 million ques- The production of gasoline, ball military government became more victors. Almost immediately, they to an end. most tragic and questionable par- tionnaires had been submitted in bearings, synthetic rubber and and more frequently supplanted by took on crucial roles within the 14 The German Times – 75 Years of Peace March 2020

was made up of members of this BY TANJA PENTER unpaid, involuntary labor force. Large-scale ethnic purges also he fascists are facing their shaped the initial post-war years in final hour. Our hearts all of East-Central Europe. Roughly Tare filled with joy,” wrote 800,000 Poles were deported west, Ukrainian scientist Mikhail Usyk mostly from Ukraine, and more in his diary as the Red Army’s lib- than 500,000 Ukrainians were eration of the city of Kharkiv in relocated from Poland to Ukraine eastern Ukraine grew near. “Our by the Soviet NKVD, often by the own people are close. We are wait- use of massive force. In spring 1947, ing impatiently for them, the libera- roughly 150,000 Ukrainians who tors.” had resisted resettlement were Usyk had lived through the forcibly relocated within Poland German occupation and was full of from the southeast to the north happy yet fearful anticipation. “But and west of the country as part of how are you going to judge us and Operation Vistula. This undertak- our mostly forced service for the ing was designed to assimilate the Germans?” he asked. “The provo- Ukrainians to Polish culture. cateurs among the Germans spread Polish troops were almost exclu- rumors about the supposed terror sively responsible for carrying of the ‘Reds,’ alleging that they out Operation Vistula, but it was are going to shoot everyone who undoubtedly coordinated with worked for the Germans. Non- Moscow and sought in particular sense! Lies!” The people of Kharkiv to weaken the Ukrainian resis- and other cities had endured so tance. Moreover, roughly 200,000 much, he noted. They had learned western Ukrainians were deported to appreciate the merits of Soviet within the Soviet Union to the power. Usyk insisted his people Siberian Gulag. All the while, the would be “the most zealous and post-war governments of the Soviet obedient” in the future, the best Union and Poland coordinated their at their work. “Under German ethnic purges between themselves rule, the people faced starvation, and worked to remove the minori- lost relatives and endured physical ties from their territory on both and moral oppression. They know sides of the Polish-Soviet border. what slave labor means and they Due to the fact that millions of have endured the cold and man- Jews and Poles had fallen victim aged without light and water.” Pre- to the Nazi extermination policy cisely for this reason, he argued, during the war and that many there had been “a palpable change Ukrainian Germans had emigrated, in people’s attitudes towards Soviet Russians now represented the larg- power. There is no longer any talk est minority in Ukraine. After 1945, of resentment against the Soviets tens of thousands of Russians emi- like there was in the days when the grated to western Ukraine as skilled Germans came.” workers and laborers. It stands as Any hopes or expectations held yet another tragedy suffered by by Soviet citizens that the USSR Ukraine that as a result of both war- would undergo a change of direc- time and post-war purges, the coun- tion after its victory – thereby yield- try lost the multi-ethnic character it ing to the people’s desire for more had developed over centuries. bread and additional freedoms – For Poles and Ukrainians, this were soon dashed. Life after the mutual history of ethnic cleans- war did not get better at first; it got ing presents a difficult legacy. worse. Most Soviet citizens contin- Violent Ukrainian-Polish conflicts ued their everyday lives in a perma- had already taken place in the war nent state of emergency, just like years. For example, starting 1943, in the 1930s and in wartime, with the UPA had carried out acts of hardship and misery now winning terrorism against Polish settlers in out over their feelings of victory in Volhynia and Galicia, which killed the war. around 100,000 Poles, including People who lived through those many women and children. In times recalled how immediately return, the Polish home army – following the war, all conversa- Armia Krajowa – murdered about tion focused on how people were 20,000 Ukrainians. going to survive the next day. In The Ukrainian decommuniza- the winter of 1946/47 there was tion or “memory” laws passed in DPA-ZENTRALBILD a drought followed by another A Nazi propaganda photo of a Ukrainian woman harvesting sunflower seeds. 2015, which stipulate that members famine, which affected Ukraine and of the UPA and the Organization parts of Russia and claimed up to of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) 1.5 million lives. must be fully honored as “fight- The Soviet Union emerged from ers for Ukrainian independence,” World War II as the “impoverished have met with massive protests victor.” On the one hand, it had Borderland in Poland. Some Polish historians greatly increased its international believe that the murder of Polish standing, become a world power civilians carried out by Ukrainian alongside the US and recorded Victory and liberation from the Nazis in Ukraine was followed nationalists qualifies as genocide. large territorial gains. On the by starvation, forced labor, purges and guerrilla warfare In 2018, amendments to Polish laws other hand, it had suffered enor- specified that the investigation of mous losses – an estimated 26 mil- crimes carried out by Ukrainian lion Soviets died in the war – and nationalists against Polish citi- destruction on its own territory. Holocaust, while around 2.4 million The end of World War II also 1950s. After 1945, the UPA waged a as cleaning and cooking for the zens would be a central focus of The demobilization of the army, forced laborers, especially young brought an expansion of Ukraine’s parallel war against Polish authori- Germans. official Polish history policy and re-evacuations, repatriations women, had been deported to the territory in accordance with ties in the areas of eastern Poland. Mikhail Usyk’s fearful anticipa- research in the future. The political and deportations had also set German Reich. the Soviet annexation of eastern Late Stalinism in Ukraine was tion proved to be prescient. In relationship between Ukraine and giant swaths of the population in Research into the crimes of the Poland, which had been agreed generally characterized by a new post-war Ukraine, it wasn’t just Poland, which had been somewhat motion. Moreover, the economic German occupiers in Ukraine upon in the Hitler-Stalin Pact of version of the fight against Ukrai- the former active supporters of reconciled since the 1990s, is now reconstruction and restoration of – including the mass murder of 1939. At the Allied conference in nian nationalism. It was accompa- the Germans who were suspected increasingly burdened by these the social order after the libera- Ukrainian Jews and Roma, the kill- Yalta in February 1945, the Curzon nied by repressive policies against of treason, but everyone who had historical-political controversies. tion of the occupied territories was ing of the sick and disabled and Line was set as the binding western Ukrainian intellectuals and an lived under German rule. After Competing interpretations of accompanied by various ethnic, the inhumane treatment of Soviet border of the Soviet Union. From intensified policy of Russification. the war, several million inhabit- the history of World War II now social and political purges. prisoners of war in the camps in that point on, all Ukrainians lived In other words, the Soviet lead- ants of the occupied territories also provide potentially explosive What did the end of World War Nazi-occupied Ukraine – is still in in a common state, the Ukrainian ership responded to its post-war had a note to this effect inserted content for the already difficult II mean for the people of Ukraine? its infancy yet is currently the sub- Soviet Socialist Republic. problems by using pre-war repres- into their identity cards, which relationship between Ukraine and “The war has come to an end. Vic- ject of a research project at Hei- However, the political and eco- sive measures in an attempt to restricted their career opportuni- Russia. After the Euromaidan pro- tory, hurray!” wrote Nina Gera- delberg University. The population nomic integration of western wrest control of the population by ties and often led to other forms of tests, the annexation of Crimea simova, a student in Kyiv, in her loss in Ukraine was all the more Ukraine presented immense chal- means of old, tried and tested tech- discrimination and stigmatization. and the beginning of the war in diary on May 9, 1945. “The long- dramatic as the country had already lenges to Soviet post-war politics. niques, including purges, repression All the while, the Soviet leader- Donbass, both sides have begun awaited day has finally come. It suffered 4 million fatalities under In the early post-war years, Soviet and mobilization propaganda. ship was repeatedly forced to make using distorted views of the his- is difficult for me to describe my Stalin in the great famine of 1932– authorities –particularly the secret By 1953, more than 320,000 pragmatic concessions to urgently tory of World War II as weapons feelings. How many terrible things 1933, a catastrophe caused by the services – focused their attention Soviet citizens had been arrested needed skilled workers, who were in their political conflict as well were we forced to endure in these willful mismanagement of Soviet on smashing Ukrainian national by the Soviet secret service for essential in tackling the massive as a means to mobilize their own past years, and now all of this is leadership. forces, which had temporarily col- being suspected Nazi collabora- challenge of economic reconstruc- populations. There is ample evi- behind us!” To this day, Ukraine’s share of the laborated with the Nazis during tors, including 93,590 individuals tion. New groups of forced labor- dence that the difficult legacy of As one of the main battlegrounds victims of World War II and the the war. This tied up many Soviet in Ukraine. Most of those arrested ers – including repatriated Ostar- World War II will continue to of World War II, Ukraine had suf- German occupation and extermi- resources. After the war, members were sentenced to prison terms beiter and Soviet prisoners of war pose major challenges for societ- fered a tremendous amount of nation policies continue to attract of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and forced labor lasting between as well as German prisoners of war ies in the successor states of the physical and emotional destruc- scant acknowledgment in the Euro- (UPA) continued their activities in 10 and 25 years. Some were even and ethnic German civilians who Soviet Union. tion. Most of its cities and much pean culture of remembrance. For western Ukraine, carrying out acts sentenced to death, including had been deported to the Soviet of its industry were reduced to this reason, any plans to erect a of sabotage and attacks on repre- some former forced laborers and Union from Eastern and Southeast- ruins. There were also huge popu- memorial in Berlin to the victims sentatives of the Soviet state while members of the police force that ern Europe – were used in large lation losses – it is estimated that of the Polish occupation should often enjoying strong public sup- had murdered on behalf of the numbers in this reconstruction. TANJA PENTER is a German historian and between 6 and 9 million Ukrainians therefore also include victims in port for their efforts. Germans. They also comprised In October 1945, in some factories professor of Eastern European died in the war. Roughly 1.5 million Ukraine and other Eastern Euro- This guerrilla warfare in western women who had been deported in the central coal basin of Don- history at Heidelberg University. Ukrainian Jews were killed in the pean countries. Ukraine continued until the mid- to the Reich to perform such tasks bass, 80 percent of the workforce March 2020 The German Times – 75 Years of Peace 15

PICTURE ALLIANCE / ZB

where were you over there, what BY KLAUS GRIMBERG did you do there, when did you return, who set you free?” e worked 12 hours Some forced laborers were every day,” recalls rewarded for their time in Ger- WLarissa Shvydchenko. many with additional years in “After the night shifts, you just Soviet prison camps. Or they were went back to your bunk and col- openly discriminated against, as lapsed. Even when they shouted Valentina Yanovskaya recalls: ‘There’s food, get up!’ you simply “Whenever I tried to find work, could not open your eyes.” Pavel In 1944, the Nazis introduced so-called Volkstumabzeichen, or ethnicity badges, for forced laborers from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (l. to r.). the first question was always: Mikhailov writes, “We were Where was I during the war? In nothing but skin and bones. We the occupied territory or evacu- weren’t even people anymore, ated? And then I had to listen to just mummies. No idea how we things so horrible that I didn’t managed to stay on our feet. It want to live any more. How many was only because we were young Home-sickness times have I regretted having ever that we survived.” returned home?” These are just a few examples of the hundreds of thousands of Soviet forced laborers worked brutal shifts under the Nazis, and KLAUS GRIMBERG memories held by Soviet citizens then returned home after the war to suffer additional years in Soviet prison camps is a freelance journalist based forced to do labor in Germany in Berlin. during World War II. Beginning in the spring of 1942, nearly three million men and women were first arose in the late 1980s. In These letters and many result- There are two key motifs that Germans. Gestures of sympathy rounded up under threat of vio- the Soviet Union, too, the slave ing interviews with slave labor emerge time and again in these were very clearly recognized. Tati- lence and other forms of retalia- laborers’ stories were silenced survivors constitute a vast recollections: the brutality of the ana Veselovskaya recalls: “When I tion in areas of the Soviet Union for decades. Under Stalin, they archive of the history of the work and the constant hunger came back and opened my drawer, Memorial Moskau, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung (Hg.) occupied by the Wehrmacht. The were even denounced as trai- Ostarbeiter in wartime Germany. felt by the workers. It could there was always some buttered Für immer gezeichnet average age of the deportees was tors or collaborators. Only in the Letters, postcards, photos and make a huge difference, however, bread and something else inside. Die Geschichte der Ostarbeiter 20, but many were substantially 1980s under Gorbachev and his other documents unveil a pan- whether an Ostarbeiter worked Whoever it was who put it in younger, at just 15 or 16. policy of Glasnost, or openness, oramic window onto what these for a major arms producer in a there, I don’t know. The Germans Of the 11 million slave laborers did many surviving forced labor- men and women were forced city or on a rural farm. were afraid of one another.” And the Nazis rounded up to work in ers finally share their experiences. to endure so far from home. In Alongside exhaustion and Nadyezhda Bulava: “You know, I Germany, it was Soviet citizens – A civil-rights society called 2017, a team of Russian historians hunger, people felt lost and also met completely normal Ger- whom Nazi bureaucrats lumped Memorial, founded in Moscow published a documentary volume longed for their homes. “A for- mans. There were good people, together with other Eastern and in 1989 to shine light on Stalin- of the many memory fragments eign land, a foreign language including some who helped us. But Central European captives and ist injustices, joined forces with yielded by correspondences and and foreign customs. Some girls most were fascists.” Ch. Links Verlag referred to as Ostarbeiter – that the Heinrich Böll Foundation in interviews. That volume has now were only 13 or 14. They had it For nearly all of these individu- were by far the largest single Germany to focus on Nazi-era been published in German trans- especially hard,” wrote Antonia als, returning home became yet Für immer gezeichnet. Die group. They were also treated slave labor. It received a boost lation. Maxina. As Vadim Novgoro- another bitter experience, as they Geschichte der Ostarbeiter with particular brutality; in the from a misleading newspaper Rather than tracing the fates dov recalled, “we did not really were often treated with distrust in Briefen, Erinnerungen und Interviews Nazis’ depraved hierarchy of report published across most of of individual persons, the book believe we would ever return and suspicion. “We noticed imme- (Forever marked. The history nationalities, Ostarbeiter occupied the USSR in April 1990, which arranges fragments of recol- home. We wanted to go back; we diately: We were aliens, second- of Ostarbeiter in letters, the bottom rung. claimed that anyone who wrote lections into thematic groups, missed our families. It was hard class. We could not be trusted. recollections and interviews), In West Germany, historical in to report their experiences beginning with the years before to accept that we were no longer We have to be vetted, re-vetted, edited by Memorial International interest in the fates of Soviet could count on a pension from and during deportation to Ger- free.” and vetted again,” recalls Zoya in Moscow and the Heinrich forced laborers, along with the Germany. Almost immediately, many. The great focus, however, Despite their suffering, many Yeliseyeva. “We were all interro- Böll Foundation in Berlin; German translation published idea of compensating these Memorial received more than is on accounts of living and work- forced laborers had nuanced gated: When did we leave where, by Christoph Links Verlag. individuals for their suffering, 400,000 letters. ing in Germany. memories of Germany and the with whom, who else was there,

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tant allies, part of the coalition BY ALEXANDER HAGELÜKEN of democracies we used to call the Free World,” Paul Krugman onald Trump says that points out. “These days, our erst- Donald Trump has a date while allies can no longer con- Din mind. By then, Amer- sider America a reliable partner, ica’s trade deficit with Europe is on trade or anything else.” supposed to have vanished. Until Europe has begun turning else- that date, the US president will where. The EU is knitting a net- deploy the same threats he’s using work of free-trade agreements to blackmail China, a global power. with Japan, Latin America (Merco- But Trump has not yet considered How to lose a trade war sur), Mexico and other states that the ways in which Europe can prefer cooperation over coercion. defend itself, nor has he realized China is moving in the same direc- that in turning the global system of Donald Trump is hell-bent on punishing the EU, tion. It would appear that Europe multilateral free trade on its head, but the only thing he’ll get is an isolated US and China are entering a period of he is risking the prosperity of the greater cooperation. entire Western world. These trends reveal two lessons. America is being cheated. This First, the US is gradually isolating is the vague claim Trump uses to Europe is not China. It is piloted Fund to fix a monitoring eye on be merely a reprise of the mer- the global economic pie because itself economically. Global trade justify a strategy of aggression that not by an authoritarian regime but the markets. cantilism of the French Sun King free trade is decidedly not a zero- will, increasingly, flow towards has led to the slapping of unprec- by a relatively weak central insti- Even 200 years ago, economists Louis XIV and his finance minister sum game. The WTO estimates an avoidance of the US. Trump edented tariffs on China. He has tution in Brussels. Its real power such as Adam Smith and David Jean-Baptiste Colbert. that the global exchange of goods, is attacking globalization, a trend raised prices on goods to the tune lies in its self-assured, democratic Ricardo spelled out the funda- Smith and Ricardo displaced which grew by 4.6 percent in 2017, that has acted as a force of integra- of $360 billion – more than the member states, of which there mental principle that free trade is mercantilism, and rightly so, as expanded by only 1.2 percent in tion for the countries of the world. GDP of Denmark, Colombia or are many. The EU is not going to not a zero-sum game. Both sides current events attest. Trump’s 2019. The global economy is grow- This will harm US economic the Philippines. Since Trump’s simply order additional US prod- win because they can play to their aggression against China is not ing more slowly than at any time output and most likely reduce its inauguration, the average tariff ucts in volumes approximating the strengths, thereby fostering the going to solve the problems of the since the 2008 financial crisis, the political influence in the world. on Chinese exports to the US GDP of Greece, as President Xi growth of the economic pie from US. Sure, the trade deficit with OECD warns. Traditional constants such as the has risen from 3 to 20 percent, Jinping has done. which they take their slices. The China has fallen by $50 billion. But Europe has no interest in assist- geopolitical influence and global according to the Washington- No indeed. Europe’s national West’s great advances in prosper- the US has simply bought its prod- ing Trump in pushing this down- dominance of the US dollar, which based Peterson Institute for Inter- governments have held firm, ity since World War II stand as ucts elsewhere. It is estimated that ward trend. Too much is at stake. allows for cheap credit, are now national Economics. along with their well-organized vivid proof of the validity of this the aggregate deficit climbed to Germany alone sells half a million being called into question. In January, Beijing buckled and farmers and citizenry in gen- theory. a new record of more than $900 cars in the US every year. Like- Second, America’s alliance with agreed to buy $200 billion of addi- eral – who have harbored mixed wise, Europe has no interest in Europe is falling apart. What tional soy, natural gas, pork and emotions about US swagger ever moving production to the US and about the idea of setting tech- other US goods in 2020 and 2021. since the Vietnam War. Give in to thereby sacrificing jobs. The EU nological standards by means of Now Trump is demanding similar Uncle Sam in the guise of Donald Trump fails to realize that could respond to Trump’s aggres- the TTIP trans-Atlantic trade concessions from the EU, which Trump? What could be less popu- sion with retaliatory tariffs against deal before a competing scheme he says is “worse than China.” lar than that? his supposed victory over US online companies, which is established by Beijing? Forget Trump is threatening the EU with And there are other reasons would further depress the global about it. What about the pros- tariffs of up to 25 percent on cars. why it would be hard to imag- China is nothing of the sort, economy but serve as a neces- pects of teaming up to stop Chi- According to Nobel Prize-winning ine Europe ever buckling under. sary means of addressing Trump’s na’s discrimination against for- economist Paul Krugman, this is For example, “America First” not even for the US attempted blackmail. eign companies? Unlikely. While an “abuse of presidential power, blatantly challenges the open- All in all, it is a dangerous cock- Trump rebrands the US as a force contempt for the rule of law and market logic the West has fol- tail for industrialized nations, of darkness, Europe is on the look- dishonesty about motivations.” lowed ever since the advent of the Under the influence of his advi- billion in 2019. In the words of where middle-class frustration is out for new partners. In the 2020s, Trump fails to realize that his sup- industrial age. Its initial policies sors, Robert Lighthizer and Peter Krugman, “Trump’s trade war has already feeding populist tenden- our world is headed for major posed victory over China is nothing were hesitant, with occasional Navarro, author of Death by China, raised prices for American con- cies. An economic slump could uncertainty. of the sort, not even for the US. protectionist relapses, but they Trump regards trade as indeed a sumers, hurt US businesses and unleash greater social unrest. Nor does he realize that Europe – then became resolute following zero-sum game. He claims that the farmers and deterred business Furthermore, alongside the day- for a variety of reasons – is likely World War II, with the establish- US has lost out because China and investment by creating uncer- to-day confrontations, a longer- to respond differently than the ment of supranational institu- Europe have been booming. And, tainty.” term change is also underway. ALEXANDER HAGELÜKEN is senior editor for economic Chinese did. The result would be tions such as the World Trade accordingly, he mistakenly thinks The orgy of punitive tariffs is “And, remember, the nations policy at the Süddeutsche a further weakening of the global Organization (WTO), the OECD that the US wins when it harms creating new problems instead of Trump was trying to bully are Zeitung. economy and an isolated US. and the International Monetary China and Europe. But that would solving old ones. It is shrinking or were among our most impor- 18 The German Times – Business March 2020

Getting to nyet Nord Stream 2 and its myriad stakeholders

DPA/BERND WÜSTNECK Laying pipe: The Audacia at work on Nord Stream 2 in the Baltic Sea

a far-reaching agreement for three operating consortium made up of to Russia, thereby possibly under- matter is likewise clear. Although CO2 intensity (in comparison to BY ANDRÉ WOLF billion cubic meters of natural gas Russia’s Gazprom and German mining the effectiveness of West- both countries no longer rely coal), gas-fired power stations are to be delivered annually to Essen- contractors Wintershall and E.On ern sanction regimes in current heavily on Russian gas for their an essential backup for absorbing he project was almost 90 based Ruhrgas AG for 20 years. Ruhrgas, and was shepherded areas of conflict. own energy supplies, the transit natural fluctuations in power gen- percent finished. Prepa- In return, the West German steel politically by German Chancellor Economic interests also play an fees they collect remain an impor- eration from wind and the sun. Trations for the inaugu- industry provided pipes for build- Gerhard Schröder and Russian important role. It is no secret that tant source of revenue that would On the other hand, Europe’s ral festivities were underway. ing pipelines. President Vladimir Putin. The pro- the US wants to greatly expand be jeopardized by the detour own gas production will fall But the US was set on putting A series of economic factors prietor and operator of the project delivery capacities to Europe for through the Baltic. sharply. Critics fear that the addi- a halt to the Nord Stream 2 gas encouraged the continued expan- would be the newly founded com- its domestic fracking gas in the The project also poses great tional pipeline will produce lock- pipeline no matter what. Even sion of these ties. The 1973 energy pany Nord Stream AG. form of LNG tankers. The neces- security risks for Ukraine. In the in effects in energy acquisition though the ships belonging to crisis saw West German industry In 2013, it was revealed that sary infrastructure has recently country’s ongoing conflict with that could turn a bridging tech- the Swiss contractor Allseas clamoring for more independence plans were in the works to aug- undergone a substantial expan- Russia, Nord Stream 2 would nology into a permanent solution. would most likely have com- from the caprices of OPEC states. ment the two existing lines with sion, with Europe now operat- deprive Ukraine of an important It can be argued, however, that pleted their work within a couple And the Soviets were always open two additional, largely parallel ing 36 LNG terminals. However, advantage against its big neighbor. under the conditions of the lib- of days, Donald Trump abruptly to hard currency and a stable rev- pipes. From the beginning, this because it must be liquefied and Furthermore, closer ties between eralized European gas and elec- threatened sanctions on com- enue source. new pipeline project, called Nord transported by ship – both of its important continental partner, tricity markets, the production panies involved in the project. Points of political dispute were the EU, and Russia are also not in technology and means of delivery And then, early this February, he deliberately excluded. On both Ukraine’s interests. In sum, the that yield the greatest value will announced additional sanctions. sides, neutral technology experts economic and security interests ultimately prevail regardless of The pipeline at the bottom of were tasked with management. It From the very beginning, of Nord Stream 2’s opponents are infrastructural conditions, so that the Baltic Sea was designed to was believed that stable trade ties generally congruent. the success of the “green transi- ferry gas from the huge fields in would foster reciprocal trust and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline From Russia’s perspective, the tion” will be decided in one way Russia’s arctic Yamal Peninsula lay the groundwork for develop- project eases its own vulnerabil- or another by the market. to the German coast near Grei- ment cooperation in other sectors has elicited heated ity to pressure from neighboring The European Commission has fswald, where it would be fed as well. states and weakens the West’s become increasingly critical of the into European grids. Today, the Following the collapse of the international political reaction political unity, yet the economic project. Ever since the Russian- project is on ice. Soviet Union, plans were drawn consequences are harder to judge. Ukrainian gas conflict of 2005 The controversy surrounding up to expand available transport In connection with other pipeline temporarily affected gas supplies the Baltic pipeline has a long his- routes. The goal there, too, was to Stream 2, elicited heated inter- which require energy – LNG has projects such as Turkish Stream, to Europe, the Commission has tory. As early as the 1950s, during link the Russian Federation more national political reaction. Some the disadvantage of still being Nord Stream helps diversify sales backed a policy of diversification. one of the Cold War’s tensest closely with the West through arguments similar to those wit- more expensive than the Russian channels for Russian gas and sta- Yet it is not actively obstruct- periods, West German industrial- increased trade. nessed during the earlier project pipeline gas. bilize revenue over the medium ing the Nord Stream 2 project. ists spoke with Soviet representa- Meanwhile, Ukraine became a evolved due to new geopolitical Then there’s the general alliance term. But it is doubtful that the Nevertheless, initiatives such as tives about a deal that would ben- new, independent transit country, realities. policy perspective. US grievances additional income for Gazprom the recent amendment to the efit them both. The young Federal only too happy to charge transit The current debate is character- over the low military expendi- will suffice to offset the high -con EU Gas Directive, which further Republic’s fast-growing economy fees and finding itself in a position ized by three different yet related tures of many NATO allies, first struction costs, especially in light eases ownership unbundling and had its eye on the Soviet Union’s to threaten the flow of gas. As a spheres of argumentation, namely and foremost Germany, did not of the new EU gas directives. expands third-party access to comparatively cheap oil and gas. result, in the mid-1990s, much to economy, security and ecology, begin when Trump took office. As the entry point for Nord include suppliers from non-EU In return, pipes imported from the chagrin of the Ukrainians, the which are emphasized to varying The fact that these “freeloader” Stream 2, Germany can expect states, can certainly be seen as Germany would help modernize idea of building a supplementary degrees by the parties involved. states would then also seek closer savings on transit fees. On the defensive steps – even if excep- the USSR’s gas infrastructure. A underwater pipeline through the At one end of the spectrum stand energy ties to Russia must seem ecological level, disputes con- tions are still possible. US trade embargo put an end to Baltic, with Germany as its termi- the clear opponents of the project especially reprehensible from tinue over the compatibility of the those plans. nal, gained currency. – the US, Ukraine and many East- Washington’s perspective, which project with the long-term goals The sanctions were dropped In July 2004, a memorandum ern European states. Washington explains the US government’s of Germany’s own energy tran- during the détente era. It was the of intent was signed regarding regards Nord Stream 2 as detri- broad bipartisan opposition in to sition project. On the one hand, ANDRÉ WOLF is head of the Energy, Climate and economically burgeoning German construction of a 1,224-kilometer mental to US interests for several the project. gas is considered a necessary Environment research division region of Bavaria that restarted duct from Vyborg to Lubmin near reasons. The US sees a geopolitical From the vantage point of the medium-term bridging technol- at the Hamburg Institute of talks with the Soviets in the late Greifswald. It resulted in a 2005 threat in Europe’s energy supply main Eastern European transit ogy for the generation of electric- International Economics (HWWi). 1960s. They culminated in 1970 in agreement in principle among the becoming even more closely tied states, Ukraine and Poland, the ity. With their flexibility and low

Knock, knock! Huawei’s there The EU has settled the dispute over Huawei’s role in its 5G network. Or has it?

of the government in Beijing. On At the same time, Brussels pre- munications emergency in the US justified. Indeed, Chinese intel- able degree of uneasiness, not BY DANIEL LEISEGANG the other side are industry rep- sented a bundle of recommenda- last May as part of his trade war ligence laws require that private only in Washington, but also in resentatives, a majority of whom tions designed to minimize the against China. This was the point sector companies assist state Berlin, and even in her own party, t appears that the impasse is in favor of using Huawei’s ser- risks involved in setting up 5G at which the US Department of intelligence agencies on the col- the CDU, and among her own relating to Huawei is finally vices because they see it as the networks – including an instruc- Commerce put Huawei on a kind lection of information whenever ministers. Foreign Minister Heiko Icoming to an end. Starting only way to avoid lagging behind tion to keep suppliers that had of blacklist, and since then, the requested. However, the US has Maas (SPD), in particular, is back in May 2019, a heated discus- other countries in the high-speed been classified as “high-risk” out Trump administration has urged so far been unable to provide any intent on ensuring that “political sion had emerged within the EU digital age. of critical areas of the network. all of its international allies to evidence to support its allega- trustworthiness” is an essential as to whether or not the contro- The European Commission has The commission included among similarly refrain from using Chi- tions. criterion for the approval of any versial Chinese tech giant should now come up with what looks these risks any influence coming nese mobile phone technology As long as this evidence is 5G suppliers. On the other hand, be involved in the expansion of like a way out of this stalemate. from a third country. for reasons of cybersecurity. An unavailable, the German govern- Economic Affairs and Energy the ultra-fast fifth-generation In late January, after months of In other words, Huawei will extra component of this request ment is not eager to automatically Minister Peter Altmaier (CDU) (5G) mobile network in Europe. negotiations with member states, now be permitted to participate was a thinly veiled threat that the ban Huawei from participating and Interior Minister Horst See- Ever since, two distinct fronts it announced that it was explic- in the expansion of the 5G net- US would restrict intelligence in German networks. As Chan- hofer (CSU), like Merkel, are have stood almost irreconcilably itly opposed to excluding par- work in the EU, but under strict cooperation if it felt it had to. cellor Angela Merkel has made against the complete exclusion of opposed to one another. On one ticular 5G providers per se from conditions. Does this mean that Even if the US government is clear from the very beginning, Huawei. side are the representatives of EU the European market, arguing all’s well that ends well? Not at more concerned with China's she is in favor of a more moder- The European Commission’s security authorities and intelli- that the decision as to whether all. The US government, in par- expansive economic policies than ate approach that would include decision has now provided gence services, who fear that a supplier is considered risky or ticular, reacted very angrily to with actual data security, the sus- increased security requirements Huawei supporters with some Huawei could spy on European not must be made solely on the the European decision. After picion that Huawei could carry and stronger controls. tailwind. All parties involved mobile networks and sabotage basis of specific security consid- all, it was US President Donald out surveillance on behalf of the Merkel’s posture on the issue, already agree that other provid- critical infrastructure on behalf erations. Trump who declared a telecom- Chinese government is entirely however, has caused a measure- ers should also be involved in the March 2020 The German Times – Business 19

Scold war Radicals have hijacked the climate debate. It’s eco-dictatorship vs. eco-Calvinism

The world produces 1,332 tons This culture war is quite distinct But how do we go about creating conflict posed to their business But how can the environment BY JULIA BOEK of carbon dioxide per second – 42 from the emancipatory turmoil this green industrial revolution? models. debate become more civil? How gigatons per year. These green- that began in 1968. Peter Unfried, How do we achieve the demo- At the same time, we cannot can we craft a rational and advis- hen Time magazine house gas emissions are caused senior correspondent for the left- cratic majorities we need to usher overlook the fact that politicians able climate policy? Climate chose climate activist above all by oil, coal and gas, wing tageszeitung, points out that in innovative social and ecological are shifting the climate problem to experts like Unfried are demand- WGreta Thunberg as its that is, by the fossil fuels upon up until now, the dynamic has policies and industries? No one a moral and cultural level – a phe- ing a new societal discourse that person of the year last Decem- which the growth of prosperity been “men against women” or can say exactly how. Nor can we nomenon that Ralf Fücks, a Green forgoes prophesying the apoca- ber, US President Donald Trump and advancement of the indus- “heteros against homos,” that is, know how much it will cost. At the Party politician and cofounder of lypse while constructively discuss- fumed in a tweet: “So ridiculous. trial world are based. As a result a disenfranchised group asserting moment, political and industrial the Center of Liberal Modernity ing the opportunities presented Greta must work on her Anger of these forces, scientists predict its rights in the face of a dominant decision makers are under tremen- think tank, calls the “privatization by the green transformation. It Management problem, then go to more frequent severe storms, heat opponent; today, however, this nar- dous pressure to agree on innova- of the climate issue.” This trend is would behoove us to embrace a a good old fashioned movie with a waves, drought and rising ocean rative dichotomy of “us against the tive climate policies that produce a bolstered by the claims of many liberal democratic attitude bent friend! Chill Greta, Chill!” levels; and these in turn will lead fill-in-the-blank” no longer holds. smaller carbon footprint, as well as climate activists that the looming not on dividing society with regu- Several journalists interpreted to hunger crises, land loss, wars The old deep trenches are losing alternative concepts for mobility climate disaster can be mediated lation overload vis-à-vis elite life- Trump’s tweet as a tasteless spin and climate refugees. At stake is significance, as the obstacle, which and production and huge invest- by individuals rethinking their style questions, but on maintain- on the “Run Forrest, Run!” clip nothing less than a livable future was formerly “the others,” has now ments in renewable energies. habits and values. ing open and honest dialog. from Forrest Gump. The epony- mous character in Robert Zem- ecki’s masterpiece has a very low IQ and is considered to be mentally handicapped. Sweden’s Greta Thunberg suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, a vulner- ability that is exploited with con- stancy and hostility by her politi- cal opponents. In Berlin-Mitte this past summer, four pedestrians were killed when a Porsche Macan swerved onto the sidewalk. Even before the cause of the accident was officially announced, the SUV had become a multi-ton public enemy number one. At dinner tables, in the Bundestag, at roundtables and in op-eds, half of Germany began debating a ban on sports utility vehicles in cities. In the rhetoric of climate activists, the Left, the Greens and environmental groups, these half-car-half-trucks have become “motorized murder weapons” that are “responsible for climate change.” Automobile industry execu- tives, conservative politicians and car fans alike are countering with warnings about thousands of lost jobs while, above all, evoking the right of older people to have a com- fortable way to get around town. They detect signs of a rising eco- dictatorship out to ban cars alto- gether. Ecological issues have become a SHUTTERSTOCK/ RYAN RODRICK BEILER key component of a major culture for all coming generations of become ourselves – that is, Western However, instead of pushing At issue here are lifestyle factors Finally, we could all use a little war. In almost all segments of our humans and other species alike. societies that consume ever more forward with these policies, all like eating meat, fashion, driving humor. And Greta Thunberg has society, climate protectors are pit Climate protection has become energy in order to satisfy their ever- their efforts seem to go toward SUVs, long-distance travel and some. The young Swede countered against car owners, meat eaters and an existential question. It affects all expanding range of needs. forging half-baked compromises the most extreme encapsulation the petulant Trump’s verbal attack airline passengers. But what exactly segments of society and all political With its heavy dependence on to buy themselves more time, of climate consciousness, “eco- by temporarily changing her Twit- is the nature of the problem? camps. But different groups’ per- fossil fuels, the world’s growth such as modest increases to air- Calvinism,” which preaches the ter bio. Under her photo she wrote: As shown by its carbon count- ceptions of the issue vary to the economy is pushing its limits. At travel taxes in lieu of introducing renunciation of our consumer “A teenager working on her anger down clock in Berlin-Schöneberg, utmost degree. While economic the beginning of the industrial revo- a Europe-wide kerosene tax or society, the abandonment of old management problem. Currently the Mercator Research Institute liberals, social conservatives and lution, the capitalist principle of eco- gradually decommissioning the norms and the acceptance of cer- chilling and watching a good old on Global Commons and Climate those generally on the right – nomic growth relied on the idea that coal industry. tain prohibitions and limitations, fashioned movie with a friend.” Change now gives the world just 25 including globalization critics, tra- the Earth’s resources would always They embrace the former no matter what social disadvan- years and 8 months until the global ditionalists, climate deniers, etc. – be available for exploitation. Today, because they fear losing votes tages may accrue. This relocation population, at its current rate of cannot or will not see the danger we are faced with the challenge of and possibly even re-election as of the climate question to the pri- emission, has spewed so much in it, the left-leaning cosmopolitan developing an energy economy to a consequence of the socio-eco- vate sphere increasingly polarizes JULIA BOEK is a journalist based in Berlin CO2 into the atmosphere that big-city elites have elevated the replace fossil-based raw materials nomic changes that will inevi- society and, so Fücks fears, could and works for the Berlin daily the much-discussed two-degree ecology issue to a matter of life- with renewable energy sources like tably result; and they ignore or ultimately foment resignation and taz. threshold will be surpassed. style and life philosophy. wind, sun, water and biomass. reject the latter because of the radicalization.

development of 5G networks, a an arrangement cannot offer 100 deployment process, warning Beijing is well aware of this fact, the trade dispute surrounding gravely neglected the research move that would increase techni- percent security against spying that the expansion of the eco- that is Germany’s Achilles’ heel. Huawei and 5G has been settled and promotion of key digital cal diversity. In addition, all par- and sabotage. The fact that the nomically key 5G network would In December, China’s ambas- for the time being, the EU still technologies in its own sphere; ties agree that Huawei should be EU ultimately decided in favor be delayed by years if the Chi- sador to Germany, Wu Ken, faces tremendous challenges in that same time span, China has excluded from security-related of Huawei has one simple and nese equipment supplier were warned that the Chinese govern- with regard to its economic grown into a global superpower. network and system components. weighty reason, namely that most excluded. ment would not take a German future. This failure is now taking a bitter One compromise proposal cur- EU countries are highly reluctant At the same time, the economic boycott of Huawei lying down. In the next couple of months, toll, as the Huawei case shows. rently under discussion stipulates to forgo the economic benefits of powerhouse that is China is tight- Wu pointed out that a quarter of the first thing EU member states It would behoove the EU to that the German Interior Minis- a relationship with Huawei and ening the reins to a noticeable the 28 million cars sold in China must do is agree on how to clarify as quickly as possible how try has the authority to exclude China. degree. Today, the annual volume in 2018 came from German pro- secure and control their vitally it intends to achieve digital and providers from involvement in Industry experts agree that of trade between China and the duction facilities, an implicit important communications economic sovereignty moving 5G-network expansion if they Huawei offers by far the most EU is roughly €600 billion. In the threat that drew the attention infrastructure. They have until forward. Only then will it be able run contrary to any of Germany’s modern and affordable 5G tech- 20 years since 2000, the exchange not only of German car compa- the end of April to implement to counter growing pressure “predominantly public interests” nology worldwide. It is already of goods between the two trad- nies, but also of authorities in the recommendations stipulated from the US and the Far East. or “security policy concerns.” In being used in two-thirds of com- ing partners has almost tripled. Berlin itself. by the European Commission. addition, a strict system of com- mercial 5G networks outside of The EU thus has zero interest In other words, a European After that, they must once again pulsory certification for all equip- China; it is far greater use than in jeopardizing its relationship turnaround is long overdue. discuss whether the steps taken ment is also in the works. the technology provided by its with such a powerful economic An economic predicament such up until now are sufficient or DANIEL LEISEGANG It’s hard to believe that the US competitors, including Nokia, partner. This applies especially to as this leaves hardly any room for whether further protective mea- is an editor at the monthly government will be satisfied with Ericsson and ZTE. Mobile phone Germany, which is more depen- something akin to free choice. sures are required. magazine Blätter für deutsche this compromise, especially since companies are using this argu- dent on foreign trade than many In fact, it makes one thing all Yet this alone won’t be enough. und internationale Politik. Berlin knows full well that such ment to put pressure on the other EU member states. too clear: Even if it looks like In recent years, the EU has 20 LIFE March 2020

Mission creep Evangelical megachurches are expanding their influence. Their poster child is the California-based Saddleback Church and its franchise in Berlin

“What’s your name? Gimme a I love you? My favorite Saddle- indeed try to win these people they comprise the hard base of his But how does he explain the BY NANA BRINK hug. God bless you!” Like a big back church in the whole world over to the Evangelical church.” presidency, with their chief politi- success of his church, which has clumsy bear, he struggles to make is Saddleback Berlin!” By now, no But what exactly does “Evangel- cal goals including the abolition of gained about 1,000 members in onsidering the ecstatic his way through the crowd, hug- one is sitting in their comfy Zoo ical” mean? The term has become abortion rights and gay marriage just a few years – especially in faces and exhilarated ging anyone he happens to touch. Palast seats. The young man who increasingly imprecise – and not as well as the teaching of creation- a city like Berlin where almost Ccheers emanating from “You just can’t pull yourself away just rested on Warren’s shoulder only in the US. “Evangelical” gen- ism in public schools. They’re ral- two-thirds of all individuals have the masses of people gathered from him,” says a young man, is beaming: “You only get that erally means the – in part – literal lying cry is that America should no religious affiliation. And of in front of the Zoo Palast, one laughing and almost throwing here.” interpretation of the bible com- remain a “Christian nation.” those who do, about 30 percent would be forgiven for thinking a himself on Warren’s broad shoul- Saddleback Berlin is one of the bined with a believer’s personal A “white Christian nation,” adds are Muslim. In fact, Berlin has so movie star were visiting the ven- der. “I’ve got you! Don’t worry!” most successful new churches in relationship to Jesus Christ. Rolf Schieder, professor of practical many hundreds of various reli- erable old cinema and hot spot Warren shakes hands, laughs recent years, and this develop- Many Evangelical churches call theology at Humboldt University gious and ideological communi- of the Berlin International Film heartily and makes contact with ment marks a trend. For about a themselves “Baptist,” “Methodist,” in Berlin. “And Trump has prom- ties – ranging from Ahmadiyya Festival. “Rick! Over here! We anyone willing. It takes more than decade now, Evangelical mega- or “Lutheran,” and they are alike ised precisely that; I will give you Muslims to Unitarian Christians love you! Rick!” Rick Warren is a half hour till he finally makes churches have been expanding in that they are all organized inde- a Supreme Court that will work to – that the Senate Department of indeed a superstar. Even Barack it to the packed cinema. Almost their sphere of influence. pendently from the Protestant overturn all the liberal legislation Culture refuses even to offer an Obama once offered the Evangeli- 1,000 worshipers are there. They passed in the 1960s. And you have exact figure. cal Christian pastor a chance to stand up, clap and wave as Dave to admit: Trump has delivered.” Schnitter leans back and smiles, say a prayer at his first inaugura- Schnitter takes the stage. “Hey Dave Schnitter visibly recoils with a sudden look of supreme tion in 2009. guys, welcome, my name is Dave, Saddleback’s appeal when hearing the word “Evan- self-confidence: “We attract those According to The New York I am the pastor here in Berlin and gelical.” The offices of the Sad- who want to inhabit their Chris- Times, the founder of the Califor- it is such a joy to have our senior in Berlin should not dleback Church in the bourgeois tian beliefs in a new way. For many nia-based Saddleback Church is pastor, Rick ...” The rest of his district of Charlottenburg look a people, it can be alienating to among the 100 most influential welcoming address is drowned obscure the fact that the bit like a student café: aged leather sing songs from the 17th century people in the US. His organiza- out by cheers. sofas, laptops, vibrant posters, the accompanied by instruments from tion, founded in 1980 in Lake Schnitter is something like a congregation takes its orders latter bearing the words JESUS the 18th century on church benches Forest, a city in Saddleback Valley, younger copy of Warren – tall, LOVES YOU! “Now I’ve said the from the 16th century. This is just has more than 40,000 members, wide and constantly grinning. It from the US mother ship bad word,” offers Schnitter while not at all what we’re about.” making it one of America’s mega- goes without saying that the two emitting a rather loud laugh. “For Sunday morning, 10 a.m. For churches, with branches in Hong men engage in a long embrace us, ‘Evangelical’ means that we are some time, Saddleback Church Kong, Manila and Buenos Aires. when Warren reaches the expan- Religious studies scholar Martin church. They enjoy great power true to the gospel. But ‘Evangeli- has rented a happening party For six years, Saddleback has also sive stage. Standing like two Radermacher of Ruhr-University in the US, where around 25 per- cal’ is unfortunately also a politi- location in Berlin-Mitte for its had a congregation in Berlin. soccer players before a crowd of Bochum sees Europe, above all, cent of all Christians identify as cal word, meaning ‘Trump voter,’ services. Around 300 individuals On this occasion, the boss is fans, they suddenly lower their as their goal: “The mission is the Evangelical. In Germany the esti- perhaps, or ‘abortion opponent.’” regularly attend – young families, coming in person for his corpora- heads and, as if by command, the principal reason.” The co-editor mated share is but three percent, He knows how sensitively people students, older couples. Everyone tion’s birthday. Only seldom does congregation goes silent. of the Handbuch Evangelikalismus but their numbers are on the rise. in Germany react to this term. is rather casually dressed. Mari- he travel outside the US, so the The service begins with a prayer (Evangelism Handbook) is certain: In particular since Donald “We don’t get involved. Politics pili, from Ecuador, came with her Berlin branch is celebrating his and then a message: “Jesus loves “Many Evangelical churches are Trump became president, the is not a topic for us!” asserts the German husband and their two visit with an extra dash of élan. you!” But he’s not the only one. seeing that the number of church- “religious right” faction of Evan- pastor, whose full beard and cool kids. “Saddleback is an all-nation And Warren is playing his role of Warren opens his arms wide: “By goers in Europe is declining, and gelicals has grabbed the lion’s sneakers are anything but typi- church. I feel good here. I can be gracious patron to a tee. the way, have I told you lately that they’re recognizing that we can share of the spotlight. After all, cally pastor-like. just how I am.” March 2020 The German Times – Life 21

obscure the fact that the congrega- The audience was enthralled, tion is strictly organized according including the young man sitting to the principles of the mother right by the door – he wanted ship in the US, where the church to be sure to hug Warren one subsists on the contributions of its more time. Beside him stood his members. In fidelity to the bible, partner. The two men wore their these dues constitute a “tithe” of wedding rings. Huh? Don’t they one’s income. know that as a conservative Bap- Saddleback also financed its tist, Warren has denounced gay Berlin affiliate in accordance to marriage? That he believes firmly the regulations of its “mission in monogamous relationships and concept.” But today, Pastor Dave in abstinence until marriage? – Schnitter assures us, the Berlin “Doesn’t matter,” they say. branch is independent – albeit When asked about this directly, not spiritually. Saddleback can Warren steers deftly around the be considered something like a theme. He knows very well that franchise system. And like in any in Germany, he must alter how franchise company, central com- he speaks. He explains with a mand prescribes the direction its wide smile: “Everybody deserves affiliates will take. Every Sunday, dignity and respect. I don’t agree the California sermon given by with everybody, but everybody founder Rick Warren is broadcast is welcome! No matter what life- via video. Dave Schnitter himself style or gender.” And then there’s does not preach. one more selfie with the young NANA BRINK A touching scene: Saddleback Church in Berlin For Professor Radermacher, man and his husband. He’s Rick this is a clear signal that the con- Warren, the approachable star. Robert, a 50-year-old Berliner, brunch after the service. While “bible study groups.” But these has deftly exported this “Ameri- gregations are not independent: His appearance at Zoo Palast turned his back on the Protestant the message can be somewhat get-togethers essentially function can interpretation of religion” to “Saddleback is centered around pays off for his church in Berlin. church, like so many others here: vague, the subtext is always the as such meetings always have. Germany: “Usually, if we’re talk- the figure of Rick Warren, a very After the service, the congrega- “If the sermon is about Jesus, I same: Jesus loves you. “And you What does partnership mean for ing with a friend and he expresses charismatic individual, a preacher tion has won a few dozen new really don’t care where I am. The are not alone is this big city of me today? How do I raise my kids? some spiritual quandaries or who can mesmerize the people.” recruits. national church is too stiff. People ours, not alone with your spiritual How can I be better at my job? needs, we would probably recom- How that works was on dis- are happier here. People are happy need for community,” says Fred, a “And then we search for what the mend seeing a therapist or suggest play when Warren appeared at to have contact with Jesus.” computer science student. bible has to say on the matter,” going out for a beer; for most of Berlin’s Zoo Palast. For one hour And Pastor Dave Schnit- Saddleback is focused on main- explains Schnitter. us, religious vitality is something he preached about his favor- NANA BRINK is a Berlin-based freelance ter knows how to warm up his taining a strong connection to The trick is to engage people we’re critical of. But things are dif- ite topic: “We don’t wanna be a journalist for various congregation – singing, pray- congregation members beyond precisely where their problems ferent in the US.” boring church of just one nation,” newspapers as well as a ing, clapping and dancing. It’s a Sunday services. Members regu- lie – life coaching with a spiritual The appeal that Saddleback he roared to the crowd. They radio reporter and moderator party atmosphere every Sunday larly meet up in what they call twist. According to theology pro- seems to exert on the global rejoiced. “God loves diversity. God (Deutschlandfunk). morning, including childcare and “small groups,” a cooler term for fessor Rolf Schieder, Saddleback community in Berlin should not made about 6,000 beetles!”

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QW_AZ_GermanTimes_2019_290x254-D-RZ.indd 1 01.02.19 11:34 22 The German Times – Life March 2020

But nothing came of all that. It was an By organizing these events – at which he the first to compose music with a clearly forms,” he wrote in 1820 in one of his con- BY INGE KLOEPFER era of great economic and social trans- personally sold the tickets – he managed identifiable message; his work was loaded versation books. These were the cahiers formation, and the Viennese noblemen to fill a gap in the market. There had been with content and utterly overwhelming he used to communicate his thoughts with t took Ludwig van Beethoven only were no longer spending their money as no public concert system in Vienna prior emotionality. And with the help of his others despite his deafness. four resounding notes to erect an loosely as they once had. Even the Ester- to Beethoven’s performances. From that “academies,” he was able to create his These and other utterances reflect Ieverlasting monument to himself házys had fired Haydn and dismissed the moment on, concerts suddenly became own audience for himself, all of whom Beethoven’s thoughts on the human right during his own lifetime. The intractable entire court ensemble. Everyone could accessible to anyone who could buy a wanted, of course, to hear exactly the kind to individual freedom, which is, for him, start to his Fifth Symphony, which he see that things were not going to be able ticket. This was completely new. of music he was making. clearly non-negotiable; it is the very thing wrote between 1804 and 1808, more or to continue in the privi- Today, an artist like that constitutes man’s dignity – and not less exploded everything anyone had leged manner they had Beethoven would be only in art. He also formulates the obliga- ever heard in classical music prior to that before. The bourgeoisie called a “game changer.” tion each individual has to actually make moment. The idea of building a sym- was growing stronger and A game changer is some- use of this freedom, that is, to develop phony around just four notes was more more confident and the one who ushers in a revo- and to search for something new that can than stubborn; it was entirely unique and social classes were begin- lution in an industry while only be found beyond traditional think- completely outrageous. ning to mix. This devel- providing completely new ing. He himself sought to live this way Ludwig van Beethoven is a singularity opment did not escape access to it – a person who throughout his entire life, always looking in the history of art. He is one of those Beethoven’s notice; it breaks down old struc- for new musical solutions in every compo- very few artists able to usher in a funda- prompted him to pursue tures and fundamentally sition and finding them beyond the com- mental paradigm shift – a transforma- the clever strategy of first changes the behavior of positional rules of his time. This accounts tion after which nothing is ever the same making a name for himself the actors involved. for the expansive, dynamic nature of his again. Indeed, Beethoven initiated a deep as a magnificent concert By definition, game music. He never repeated himself. In his shift in classical music, choosing to write virtuoso of other compos- changers are ingenious everlasting embrace of transformation his works beyond the boundaries of the ers’ works – not an easy inventors who are born and change, he never stopped developing traditional harmonious cosmos in which feat in a Vienna filled to – as fate would have it – and transforming himself. Mozart and Haydn were still composing. the brim with topnotch into eras of change and, In terms of his art, Beethoven never But he was also responsible for propel- performers. earlier than others, recog- allowed himself to be led astray. Not even ling many other things forward. He estab- In 1795, Beethoven first nize this transformation towards the end of his life, as the Vien- lished the figure of the freelance artist; committed to publishing for what it is. These are nese turned their attention to a new star someone who works independently of some of his own works exactly the elements that in the sky above the Hofburg. Everyone the emperor’s favor and endowments by advertising his inten- converged in the case of suddenly went crazy for the shallow and from the princely courts, and instead tion in newspapers. He Beethoven: his genius as a playful Rossini. Perhaps the ears of Vienna turns directly to the public to present his already had a name, so it IKU4 SHUTTERSTOCK.COM/ musician, his ingenuity as became weary of challenge, for Rossini’s art. He went even further to fully revolu- didn’t take long before a businessman, his nose compositions were by no means as bulky tionize the concert scene itself. In fact, people showed enough for social change and the and difficult as Beethoven’s. Beethoven can be credited with creating of an interest in his work brute social and economic Beethoven, however, continued to pro- the public concert system itself. to make it possible to Game changer upheavals of the late 18th voke stubbornness. As a true artist, he Beethoven also transformed himself into publish his compositions. and early 19th centuries. simply couldn’t help it. He wrote string a brand, not only in his music, thanks to Beethoven himself raised Beethoven was more than just a composer; The French Revolution quartets that were so modern, they breathtaking compositions like his Fifth 700 guilders for the swept away the feudalist already pointed to what would emerge Symphony, but also through his savvy purpose, which was the even today, he can teach us much about structures of the Ancien among his musical brethren almost a cen- business acumen and, last but not least, equivalent to the annual business, obstinacy and freedom Régime in France, and tury later when Arnold Schönberg first his own appearance. He never wore a salary of a middle-ranking then did the same all over experimented with free atonality. wig in the streets of Vienna or at con- government official. Europe. All the while, the Beethoven was born 250 years ago and certs. He lived and worked in Vienna for To put it in more modern terms, at the Swarms of Viennese residents were advent of industrialization was creating has been dead for 193 years. But his music 35 long years, and it wasn’t only in the age of 25, the wunderkind pianist officially eager to hear him play. And there was entirely new opportunities for earnings and its themes are still very much alive – music scene there that he turned every- became a freelance composer. He would good reason for them being so receptive and, in the process, leading to the emer- particularly the headstrong Fifth, the so- thing on its head; he also influenced the soon have a field day with the publishers, to the humanistic ideals Beethoven set gence of new social classes. called symphony of fate, in which the com- emancipation movement of the emerging whose heated battle to claim his work to music in his symphonies; these ideals Game changers and the eras in which poser needed only four notes to deliver his bourgeoisie. He was nothing less than one meant that he was often able to dictate the postulated nothing less than a complete they live tend to relate to one another indelible message. With such a mind of his of its major proponents. price himself. transformation in values on the path to in a recurring pattern. The dynamics of own, he set out and succeeded to change But let’s take this one thing at a time. Beethoven’s next step came soon there- a free society. Such themes were highly change impact these extraordinary per- not just the game, but the entire world. When Beethoven hit the Austrian capi- after, when he started putting on his own popular at the time – a fact no one under- sonalities until they come to the fore and tal at the age of 22, he was still guided “academies” to prove his chops as a pia- stood better than Beethoven himself. are expressed with ingenuity and creativ- by traditional notions of what it meant nist and composer. As an artist without a After all, he counted himself as among ity by the artists who work to drive them INGE KLOEPFER to be a musician. Much like his teacher permanent position, he saw no other way their ranks; it was they for whom he com- forward even further. This is still the way is a business journalist and Joseph Haydn had achieved fame and a than to take this entrepreneurial risk. posed his finest works. it works today. contributing writer at the Frankfurter certain degree of prosperity thanks to Of course, this brought him yet more In the person of Beethoven, music and The attitude with which Beethoven car- Allgemeine Zeitung. She has written the wealthy Esterházy family, Beethoven success. His concerts were extremely commerce came together in a unique way, ried out this transformation in his day is a number of books, including a biography of publisher Friede Springer also mused about seeking a position as popular. And when he later began impro- making him what one might call the avant- nowhere better expressed than in his Fifth that garnered her the title of “Business a Kapellmeister, perhaps even back in his vising, he simply made his audiences go garde of an innovative new form of the Symphony. “True art has a mind of its Journalist of the Year” in 2005. hometown of Bonn. wild. classical music business. He was one of own and cannot be forced into flattering

ALL THE OTHERS BLOOD OF THE LIBERALS AS WE KNOW IT

ccording to Immanuel Kant, a very German philosopher, he Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany’s conservative or years, Bernd Ulrich has been publishing the most erudite, “Words without perception are empty, for they are mere paper of record, recently reported that Jan-Werner Müller well-reasoned and original pieces on the state of politics in Aformal thoughts devoid of purpose.” Thad turned down the opportunity to take over Herfried FGermany and the world. In 2017, he wrote a brilliant assess- Alexander Grau’s essay on what he calls “a German specialty” Münkler’s post as political science professor at Humboldt Univer- ment of the political and moral decline of the West and the divergent offers plenty of definitions of what political kitsch is at its core, sity in Berlin. Until his recent retirement from one of Germany’s public perceptions of it – nationalist and progressive alike (see the namely “sentimental empty phrases, obtrusive touchy-feely-ness most prominent universities, Münkler had been a preeminent October 2018 issue of The German Times). and overblown gestures of concernedness.” scholar and his position there highly coveted. Müller’s rejection But it was a personal essay Ulrich wrote later that year about The sacralization of everything worldly is kitsch, he claims. The of the post is evidence of how profoundly he has developed becoming a vegan that was his most-read and most-debated arti- basis of kitschy thought is the notion and moved beyond Germany’s often cle. Ulrich had had his come-to-Jesus that reality is actually something else. rigid scientific and journalistic borders. moment. Critics and trolls alike accused Kitsch is the helpless attempt to enno- Today, Müller teaches at Princeton Uni- him, as they are wont to do, of proselytiz- ble the trivial and the ordinary. In long- versity and writes in both German and ing. What Ulrich actually did was study ing for a world that is warm and fuzzy English. His most recent book has been religion – or rather atheism – to under- and wholly unhurt, kitsch praises pure published in German only, with a trans- stand just what made so many people conscience over rational thought. And lation likely to follow. overly defensive if not angry when con- so on. In Furcht und Freiheit (Fear and free- fronted with the data and implications of Grau writes for Cicero, a glossy politi- dom), Müller makes the case for “a man-made climate change. cal magazine with centrist bearings. His different kind of liberalism.” Drawing Ulrich is deputy editor-in-chief of the short book reads at times like a Wiki- on the famous 1989 essay by Latvian- weekly Die Zeit, the progressive paper of pedia entry on the history of political born Harvard professor Judith Shklar, record, or, as he calls it, the “central organ thought since 1789. It’s so schematic who escaped Nazi persecution and fled of middle-of-the-road rationality.” In his that even when following his basic to North America, Müller sets out to new book Alles wird anders (Everything premise, the reader is tempted to interject: “Not so fast!” At other update and redraft her notion that a “liberalism of fear” draws its will be different), which focuses on the looming “age of ecology,” times Political Kitsch reads like a 120-page David Brooks column strength not from abstract theory, but from historical memory. For Ulrich delivers a fully developed political argument for a complete – broad sociological statements stuffed with apodictic certitude. Shklar, the lesson was to learn to understand suffering, rather than upending of climate policy. Grau’s essay suffers from an absence of real people, fleshed-out to find “logical proofs in moral philosophy.” However, the book is far more than just another plea to save the thoughts and any ideas that either he or the reader could decon- Müller, of course, writes very much in the vein of a professor planet from climate doom. Ulrich forcefully deconstructs the shoddy struct. The author seems to harbor a vague dislike of perceived steeped in academic discourse, albeit with a keen sense of the reasoning for inaction beyond the usual suspects of unadulterated progressive do-gooders, yet fails to mention even one. The kitschy political fault lines beyond classroom debates. He argues for a more greed, right-wing denialism and complacency. His main argument is perceptions he rails against come across as cartoonish; even if inclusive understanding of the oft-maligned identity politics: “The that German politics since 1945 has held centrism in such high moral people actually think in such illusory terms, they may not be goal is to better realize the principles of freedom and equality that are regard that meaningful, if not radical, change is inconceivable. worthy of Grau’s haughty takedown. widely shared, not to undermine them in the name of the particular.” This very German notion has long served a noble purpose. Ulrich Toward the end of the book, he claims German intellectuals What unifies people should not be their backgrounds, but rather himself has been one of its most eloquent advocates. Still, he says, have always been aware of kitsch and happy to point to how much their commitment to the notion that rights be negotiated for the ingrained fossil-centric way of life has become so extreme as to everyone else was living in a dream world: “Kitschy is always the everyone. For example, workers’ movements have always been blind people to the costs in lives and euros and to impel Germans other guy.” Duh. Grau’s hollow plea for undefined rationality and more than just lobbying organizations for employees demanding to blame other places and other peoples. No debating, haggling or an undiluted world he never adequately depicts ultimately comes higher wages for one group – it was “a joint cultural project to shouting match about climate change should commence without across as the definition of kitsch itself. preserve dignity.” first digesting Ulrich’s praiseworthy insights.

ALEXANDER GRAU JAN-WERNER MÜLLER BERND ULRICH Politischer Kitsch. Eine deutsche Spezialität Furcht und Freiheit. Für einen anderen Liberalismus Alles wird anders. Das Zeitalter der Ökologie Claudius Verlag, Munich, 2019 Edition Suhrkamp, Berlin, 2019 Kiepenheuer und Witsch Verlag, Cologne, 2019 March 2020 The German Times – Life 23

IMAGO IMAGES / CHAI VON DER LAAGE This is going to be fun! Or not.

their Karneval Exploring the joys and follies of carnival season in Germany

ebrate the end of winter – the origi- child to take part in the one-day The latest victim came in 2019, Friedrich Merz, the man AKK Hitler – Karneval im Dritten Reich BY J. J. HAGEDORN nal pagan party upon which Kar- Fasching celebrations held at day- when Germany’s current defense referred to as a “revenant,” would (Alaaf and Heil Hitler – Karneval in neval rests – and allow themselves care or school. For others, it might minister, Annegret Kramp-Karren- be their guest speaker on Feb. 26: the Third Reich) and a subsequent n this era of global pandem- to be everything they’re otherwise mean enduring a week of seem- bauer (AKK) – at the time Angela the 1,300 tickets to that event sold book of the same name in 2009. ics, it’s hard to imagine anyone not. ingly endless coverage of the events Merkel’s successor as party leader out in a matter of days. Their work details the manner in Ihaving any interest in a folk When walking the streets of any on German public TV, which of the Christian Democrats – made Needless to say, you would never which the Nazis pursued the goal tradition that involves repeatedly Karneval-related street celebra- preempts regular programming a number of appearances immedi- catch Angel Merkel – the daughter of Gleichschlatung – the steady pro- being pecked on the cheek by a tion in Germany, one is confronted for days of parades and festival ately after attending the Munich of a Lutheran pastor from a small cess of enforced conformity in every steady flow of complete strangers. with the full breadth of costumed speeches. After last year’s events, Security Conference. Among them town in northern (East) Germany aspect of society, including Karne- And the tradition is made even revelers: there are witches, French the Hamburg-based comedy show was a 25-minute performance – making such an appearance. As val – alongside the propagation of more inconceivable if we add packs soldiers, Roman soldiers, packs Extra3 celebrated the end of carni- dressed as a cleaning lady named AKK’s experience has shown, the a Volksgemeinschaft (national com- of tipsy women roving the streets, of angels, pirates, Marvel heroes val, noting “Now we can turn the Gretl in which she claimed, among type of role reversal that takes munity) and other fascist ideas. The sharp scissors in hand, intent on and thousands more. There is no TV on again without having our other things, that German Minister place at these regional carnival Nazis instrumentalized Karneval as snipping off the tips of men’s ties. age limit; participants can be any- IQs automatically cut in half.” of Economic Affairs Peter Altmaier events runs a very tangible risk of a “national” custom, thereby remov- But no worries if you can’t imag- thing from zero to 100 years old. But enough of the party-poopers. (CDU) had been passed over for not translating well to the national ing much of the regional identity ine these and other amusing cus- However, as this is Karneval and In 2018, one Cologne merry- the position of foreign minister stage. In other words, at its worse, of local celebrations and seeking toms being carried out in our time, everything is topsy-turvy, small maker dressed as a 19th-century on account of his weight. She also Politischer Aschermittwoch is a mine- to replace them with rituals focus- it only means you’ve never experi- children can also expect to have soldier noted that there’s no way called her CDU-rival Friedrich Merz field for politicians, a feeding-frenzy ing on Kraft durch Freude (strength enced Karneval in Germany. the candy given to them by a com- to explain Karneval: “It’s like an “the revenant of German politics” for journalists and a nightmare for through joy). They also removed Every year, the festive season plete stranger stolen right out from infection,” he said, drink in hand. and insisted that the SPD party’s publicity managers. At its best, it’s one of the fundamental purposes known as Karneval, Fastnacht or under their nose by yet another “It just appears one day, and by proposal for a new Grundrente, or politics as usual, just with costumes, of Karneval: to mercilessly criticize Fasching officially gets underway complete stranger. Ash Wednesday, it’s gone.” While old-age pension, was “the most beer and orchestral rimshots after those in power. In its place, carnival on Nov. 11 at 11:11 am. In Catholic North Americans would do well it might sound like this drunken expensive self-therapy the SPD has every joke. clubs were encouraged to make fun cities throughout the Rhineland to imagine it as an unruly union of soldier has a condition that should ever asked German taxpayers to pay Still, there have been a number of of foreign leaders, such as Joseph and elsewhere, costumed revelers Easter and Halloween, with a dash definitely be looked at by a doctor, for.” Although AKK (pronounced encouraging signs coming out of Stalin and New York Mayor Fiorella storm town halls and loudly seize of Spring Break and Mardi Gras Karneval universe in the past several La Guardia, and to deliberately ridi- power – but only symbolically, and thrown in for good measure. In fact, years. In contrast to disturbing news cule Jewish citizens. only for a day. This prank marks the the celebration known in the US as that the number of Wildpinkler (wild In one anti-Semitic float that beginning of what Germans call the Mardi Gras – established by French Not all politicians take part urinaters) remains high and the made it to the Cologne Rosenmon- “fifth season,” a period that lasts settlers in Alabama and Louisiana ongoing suspicion that parade par- tag parade in the Nazi era, revelers right up to Ash Wednesday, when in the 18th century and literally in this form of revelry, but ticipants are giving their horses sed- dressed as orthodox Jews stood all the balls and parades come to an translatable as “fat Tuesday” – also atives to help them make it through next to a sign saying “The last ones end and Lent begins. marks the last day of the German when they do, the result is Rosenmontag, the emergence in 2019 on their way out.” As Dietmar and Most people equate Karneval version of carnival, albeit under the of the Kölsche Kippa Koepp, (liter- Leifeld are careful to point out, Kar- with the series of events that takes name Fastnachtdienstag or Faschings- almost always regrettable ally the Cologne yarmulke heads), neval organizers in the Third Reich place in the final six days of this dienstag. An experience similar to an official Jewish carnival group were often willing participants in long fifth season. In fact, the unbri- the events associated with Rio’s eager to reinvigorate the tradition such approaches. Plus, starting in dled stream of drunken celebra- Carnaval, the ultimate idea behind he’s nevertheless onto something. ah-ka-ka) had played the character of Jewish participation in the fes- 1935, members of official Karneval tions in Cologne, which begins on the German merry-making is to The only real answer to the ques- many times before – back when she tivities, was greeted with cheers. clubs were required to show their the abovementioned tie-snipping celebrate and engage in precisely tion as to why Karneval is so popu- was minister president of Saarland Its founders took inspiration for Arier-nachweis – an identity card Weiberfastnacht (Old Wives’ Day) those things they’ll not be able to lar, of course, is that it’s just a lot of – and her timing and performance their club’s name from the Kleiner that proved they had no Jewish and runs until Ash Wednesday, do as soon as Lent kicks in. fun for a lot of people. were solid, she was now in a signifi- Kölner Klub (Small Cologne club), a blood – or otherwise be excluded is usually what garners the most However, not everyone is so Karneval also provides countless cantly greater position of power as bowling association founded in the from membership. attention in Germany and abroad. gung-ho about the southern rev- costume artists and float design- head of the CDU and accordingly 1920s that quickly gained popularity This was a dark period in the his- What is it exactly about this fes- elry. Those who live in northern ers with a variety of opportunities received much greater criticism for among the city’s Jewish residents, tory of Karneval, one that limits tival that prompts large groups of Germany’s traditionally more Prot- to make bold social and political her portrayal of a character who but was dissolved after the Nazis any subsequent jesters’ insistence otherwise straight-laced Germans estant areas have been known to statements on current issues: there was precisely the type of person came to power in 1933. on their right to be unabashedly to ignore threats of a pandemic watch the goings-on in the south have been memorable recent floats her party has traditionally left in the At the fifth-season launch held at politically incorrect during the fifth and abandon their stark adher- with slight irritation and puzzle- depicting the VW emissions scan- lurch. the Tanzbrunnen stage in Cologne season. ence to stereotypically rigid rules ment. And there are always some dal, Brexit, right-wing dictatorships It was yet another speech, how- last November, the Kölsche Kippa And it’s true, for all of its revelry, of social conduct? While we’ve all Karneval-resistant residents of and an endless array of large-scale, ever, in which she referred to the Köpp was invited by the city’s oldest Karneval will always be a seri- seen images of Germans in Leder- southern German towns who vow mobile commentaries on political “Latte Macchiato faction” in Berlin carnival club (Die Grosse von 1823 ous business. Love it or hate it, it hosen consuming pitchers of beer to stay indoors or even take flight figures of all stripes. and appeared to make fun of bath- e.V.) to join them and 10,000 revel- remains a multimillion-dollar indus- and sausage at the annual Okto- during the days leading up to Ash Which brings us to Politischer rooms for third-gender people, that ers in making it clear – especially try that attracts hundreds of thou- berfest in Munich, what in this case Wednesday. In 2015, the satirical Aschermittwoch (political Ash actually sparked a major debate and in light of the recent anti-Semitic sands of tourists every year. Indeed, compels them to dress up as Pippi website Der Postillon announced Wednesday), an umbrella term for led to a drop in her approval rat- attack in Halle – that xenophobia when the key ingredient to your fes- Longstocking and dive with élan that northern Germany would the evenings of political potshots ings. And it was only months later, had no place in Cologne. As this was tival is alcohol, you can be sure that into the candies and kisses of Kar- be officially accepting Karneval and satire organized during carnival just two weeks before the 2020 Karneval, however, where every- each new generation will provide neval? as legitimate grounds for grant- season by Germany’s major politi- Politischer Aschermittwoch, that AKK thing is turned on its head, instead a steady flow of jokers and jesters. The answer is simple: it’s the very ing asylum to individuals seeking cal parties at the local and regional announced she was giving up the of a moment of silence, they showed There will also always be naysayers, notion of role reversal that makes refuge from the Jecken, or jesters, in level. The practice was made popu- position of CDU head and would their joint distaste for racism by who make the most of the opportu- Karneval such a hoot. The modern the Karneval-ravaged south. lar at the start of the last century in not run as a candidate for chancel- clapping loudly and nonstop for nity to gripe and look down on the form of this centuries-old tradition Indeed, Karneval means differ- Bavaria by groups of farmers wish- lor in 2021. Perhaps the thought of one minute. revelers. was established in 1823 and encour- ent things to different people. For ing to have their voice heard, but having to give up her Gretl charac- Yet, as with all traditions in Ger- Either way, as the 19th-century aged Germans to turn the world people in Cologne and Mainz, it these days, Der Spiegel describes the ter at the next Karneval celebrations many going back more than a soldier explained, the infection will on its head and forget about all the brings a week of street parties, events as more like “a party confer- was too much to bear. hundred years, it’s worth investi- go on appearing and disappearing things they worry about during the where even their local bank teller ence in a slightly drunk parallel uni- Meanwhile, the 2020 Politischer gating any potential skeletons in before you know it. rest of the year. For one crazy week, might be swigging a beer while verse.” Not all politicians take part Aschermittwoch gathering organized the Karneval closet. This is exactly they take over the streets of their dressed as a clown. For someone in this form of revelry, but when by the local CDU in the Thuringian what historians Carl Dietmar and J. J. HAGEDORN city, gather together, make music, up in Berlin or Kiel, it might mean they do, the result is almost always town of Apolda enjoyed tremen- Marcus Leifeld did in a 2008 TV is an author living in Berlin. drink to their heart’s content, cel- making a colorful costume for their regrettable. dous buzz after announcing that documentary called Alaaf und Heil 24 The German Times – Politics March 2020

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