We are heading towards two days in which the foundations for Germany were laid. Reason enough to take a look back and forward.
The next few days will mark the anniversary of the end of the war and the founding of the Federal Republic. Until recently, the liberal interpretation of German history since 1945 was unrivaled. That has changed with the success of the AfD.
The day after tomorrow will be 79 years since the end of the Second World War. May 8, 1945 was a sunny day in a desert country. My parents told me it was quiet, like it was out of time. They were young, 20 and 25 years old. My father’s stumps, where both legs had been amputated, had finally healed so that he could now wear prosthetics. They were quartered in a battered villa in Hof, after all. But the worst thing was this absolute uncertainty, this terrible uncertainty about what would happen next, what the victors would do with them after the unconditional surrender.
The German lucky children
Four years later, things had progressed surprisingly smoothly. The Federal Republic was founded on May 23, 1949. Neither the founding nor democracy were their free choice. The Germans had to allow themselves to be forced to their happiness. The Federal Republic was an Anglo-American product and adapted itself cleverly to it. The Germans, who invaded Europe and committed unparalleled war crimes, were, despite everything, the lucky children of history.
It’s been 75 years since the company was founded. 75 years is a long time. Like between the Congress of Vienna and the turn of the 20th century. Like between the French Revolution and the first of the three German wars of unification.
In 1949 the Germans had Konrad Adenauer, Ludwig Erhard and the Marshall Plan. As a result, the economic miracle came and the country became a member of the European Union and NATO.
“He freed us”
Of course, not everything went as smoothly as it seems. Germany was divided. In 1989, the great writer and Nobel Prize winner Günther Grass objected to reunification, saying that division was the consequence of Auschwitz and that the GDR was a convenient dictatorship. In fact, the causes and reasons for the great war and its consequences were controversial for a long time and repeatedly led to dramatic discussions in politics and the public.
Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker spoke from the hearts of the liberal majority 40 years after 1945. “The look went back into a dark abyss of the past and forward into an uncertain, dark future. And yet from day to day it became clearer what needs to be said for all of us today: May 8th was a day of liberation. He freed us all from the inhumane system of National Socialist tyranny.”
The “we” that Weizsäcker meant included the subjugated peoples and the Jews, Sinti, and Roma liberated from the extermination camps – all groups of people who had been humiliated by the Nazis as unworthy lives. The speech was a prime example of how to do justice to an incredibly complex stage in history.
The AfD wants a different narrative
This was the German narrative, which has since been repeated on May 8th and 23rd. But it’s no longer that simple, that undisputed. In contrast, the strengthened national and nationalist right is putting forward a competing narrative. It can be read, for example, in the “Secession”, the central organ of the right. The publisher’s name is Götz Kubitschek, he is the thought leader of the AfD and the inspiration for a reinterpretation of German history since May 23, 1945.
From this point of view, the Germans’ excessive opportunism has led them to identify primarily with the victorious power, the USA, and to adopt their preference for consumerism and materialism. So what was actually German was lost, although it is not entirely clear what it consisted of. This is easier to understand in the present, for example in relation to Russia, which is highly valued in the AfD precisely because of Putin’s iron autocracy. In this context, the war of aggression against Ukraine also appears to be a sign of impressive strength. In contrast, it was a weakness of the Kohl government that recognized the Oder-Neisse border with Poland for the sake of reunification, the right argues.
