The German question

Ever since German unification in 1871, Germany’s fate has defined Europe’s future. Germany’s economic energy enabled it to dwarf France and rival the British Empire by the eve of 1914. Germany initiated World War I, then, after a period of malaise, it executed an astounding recovery from 1933 until 1938 before initiating another European war. After the war, divided Germany became the focus of the United States and the Soviet Union, because Germany would be the place where a third world war, if there were one, would start. Once the Soviet Union fell and the Maastricht Treaty was signed forming the European Union, it was Germany at the center of the EU. Ever since 1871, the question of how to maintain peace in Europe has been how to keep a unified Germany peaceful. That is the essence of the “German question.”

That introduction would seem excessive for a discussion of the banal political maneuvering that is going on in Germany today…

The Germans have fallen prey to the European reality – that it is the voters in each country who hold the power, and all the meetings in Brussels can’t overcome that fact. Germany’s voters have just spoken. The outcome of the election was ambiguous except for one thing: It made clear that Germany is in transition, even if its future direction is not yet defined. The established parties are struggling to form a government, and in the background is the troubling memory from Weimar, when establishment parties played politics as usual while Germany simmered.