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GERMANY, THE RE-ENGINEERED ALLY

Part 3: Hail to the chief, or else By Axel Brot

Hoisting the A erican flag Germany had honed its ability to fly below the radar of international controversy to a fine art. Its dependence on foreign trade for its economic well-being required this and it resisted, moreover, for most of the last ! years rather successfully American attempts to sub"ect its economic relations with the world to the more extravagant demands of economic warfare. #o wonder, therefore, that the detente years of the $%&!s and the globali'ation of the $%%!s are remembered with fondness. German economic interests and the philanthropic basso continuo of its declaratory foreign policy were in tune. #o wonder, too, that (ashington regards these G)*-cored sentimentalities as completely out-of-tune with rousing the (est against the +enemies of (estern values+. After the shoc,s the German political class suffered in -!!-.-!!/, it agreed, be it out of conviction, opportunism or fear, with the views of the American political class. But as poll after poll reveals, both have to deal with the fact that they are the opposite of rather fundamental attitudes of the ma"ority of Germans. Germany has gladly internali'ed what was preached over the decades in political 0unday sermons about peace and prosperity, about the role of Germany in the modern world, its relationship with the (est and, in particular, what ,ind of society Germany should aspire to. 1his message has not only managed to ta,e hold2 it has become the prism through which many, if not most, Germans loo, at the world, at the government, the media - and, not least, at the 30. 1his is neither surprising nor extraordinary. 1he German lower classes have always been very reluctant heroes, having been dragged sullenly into the two world wars. It even too, all the efforts of the 0ocial )emocratic and union leaderships to crush the grassroots movement for a general stri,e that was about to disrupt the mobili'ation schedule of the German army in the run-up to (orld (ar I2 and #a'i domestic intelligence documented their distinct lac, of enthusiasm when Germany attac,ed *oland and the sense of fear and foreboding when Germany went on to eradicate 4ewish Bolshevism. 1he German educated middle classes, still hung over from their half century of ideological debauch with its "ingoism, imperialism and #a'ism, from Germany5s role as a genocidal ogre, and still remembering its war fright from the $%6!s - that, by the way, had reached deeply into the political class itself as well as into the senior levels of the German military - acquired a reflexive pacifism and ta,e, in general, great satisfaction in Germany5s reputation as a mostly harmless global social wor,er. 1hey are, to say the least, very difficult to get again behind a program of endless 7race8 wars, torture and an ideology of global mayhem. A strong ma"ority may even resist it actively via another peace movement if the German government gets too eager, or too blatant, about demonstrating militarily its commitment to the global +defense of (estern values+. German pundits - +opinion-ma,ers+ in German - ta,e all this as an expression of deeply-rooted, popular +anti-Americanism+, and anti-Americanism as a facet of anti-semitism, and both as the resurgence of anti-(estern, pro-totalitarian attitudes. 1his effort in guilt-mongering has led to some interesting myth-ma,ing, amusing if it were not so sinister. 1a,ing their cue from former 30 defense secretary )onald 9umsfeld5s inanity regarding :en'uelan *resident ;ugo <have' that +also ;itler had been elected+ by popular vote, those "ournalists who read the opinion pages of the correct American newspapers as well as former foreign minister =ischer repeated it enthusiastically and frequently. #otwithstanding their authority, the historical facts are, of course, quite different> after his election setbac, in $%/-, ;itler was not elected but

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chosen by a cabal of leaders of right-wing parties, industry and the media, to head a coalition government between those parties and the #a'is, to save the country from the left. Any schoolchild should ,now this. But delegitimi'ing +anti-Americanism+ seems to require heavy myth-ma,ing because it has turned into a problem not only for the German political class but for the whole of the ?3. 1he ?uropean populations are, with a few exceptions, completely out of tune with the ideological mobili'ation required to wage +(orld (ar I:+. #evertheless, the change has been most dramatic in Germany. 1he post-0eptember $$ spi,e in public support for the 30 was not only wiped out by -!!-.-!!/ but the A!-year fund of popular and confident pro-Americanism had evaporated and given way to distrust, fear and loathing. 1he same holds true, somewhat less dramatically, for attitudes towards Israel. As a danger to the world, both countries ran, with #orth Borea and Iran. 9ussia and <hina are still 7and stubbornly8 regarded as basically benign and unthreatening. 1his is surprising since even educated Germans tend to rely for their news on German sources - and have no access to the many sources of critical news coverage and opinion still available in the (estern world. Cne might have expected, therefore, a quic, payoff when public 1: as well as the print media, from high-brow to low-brow, rediscovered their avocation to educate the German public into +the Americans may ma,e mista,es, but the others are incomparably worse+. An ironic or regretting undertone towards *resident Bush and the neoconservatives, and dismay about their ineptness - frequently slanted as basically benevolent American naivete - has nevertheless crept into the presentation of 30 policy. 1his rhetorical flourish connects easily with the stereotypes of the self-correcting permanence of American moral leadership, the brutal fanaticism of Arabs, totalitarian 9ussians, and ruthless <hinese, and the almost superhuman difficulties in finding the right balance between force and suasion. #evertheless, the generali'ed suspicion that something is wrong - and the distrust of "ournalists and politicians - seems to have resisted up to now the best "ournalistic efforts. 0ince disquiet had spread even among segments of the high bureaucracy, the leaders of the German and American political elites moved quic,ly and decisively to counter any consequences the brea,down of the American political image might have on the attitudes of those eligible for recruitment into elite functions. A large-scale program was set in motion to ,nit young civil servants, management cadres and promising students institutionally and socially to their American counterparts and to expose them to senior officials of both countries - a ,ind of ideological Darshall *lan that saw virtually no wee, without an American-German or an American-?3 get-together. Indeed, the German Darshall =und, heavily supported by the most prominent German media conglomerates - together with the Bertelsmann =oundation - came into its own by leading it. And more stringently than ever before, to be considered a +safe+ cadre for career advancement in politics, the civil service, the media, business and science, requires the aspirant to have been successfully connected to the right ,ind of American or American-German institution at least once. )ealing with the reflexive pacifism and the politically correct humanitarianism of the ma"ority of Germans is still a much harder nut to crac,. 1he print media, in particular the wee,ly )ie Eeit, the flagship of German neoconservatives, and )er 0piegel, the middlebrow infotainment wee,ly, made their dissatisfaction with their readers repeatedly clear. And they give a certain depth to the main sub"ect of political tal,shows> the sorry state of mind of the average German, his lac, of patriotism, his addiction to peace, and his reactionary notions about the welfare state. It did not help that several efforts to reeducate Germans went seriously awry when the mainstream media 7public 1:, the German associate networ,s of <##, plus newspapers8 gave visibility and legitimacy to what might be termed the +occidentalist new right+. 1heir interventions were so well tuned to American policies and performance expectations that they confirmed involuntarily the worst expectations of what was in the offing. !"itho#t tort#re the $ar on terror cannot %e $on! Before the images of Abu Ghraib helped to visuali'e what +the gloves are off+ implied, Americans were given the opportunity to introduce the German public to the need for torture, with the +tic,ing

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bomb+ scenario. 1here was no tal,-show format that did not have torture on its schedule - with the former director of the Aspen Institute in Berlin, 4eff Gedmin 7now president of 9adio =ree ?urope.9adio Fiberty8 as the most indefatigable of its proponents. But it was the German-Israeli Dichael (olffsohn, a prominent professor at the Armed =orces 3niversity in Dunich, who publicly moved the sub"ect from the +tic,ing bomb+ to affirm the (est5s fundamental obligation to use torture against terrorist suspects. 1orture, however, though normal in Israel, would be in breach of the German constitution and for a civil servant to propose it, a breach of the civil service laws. ;e should have been fired. ;e wasn5t. Instead, then-interior minister and 0ocial )emocrat Ctto 0chily went out on a mission of damage control. In an interview with )ie Eeit he presented the concerns about torture as a tempest in a teapot. Bnowing full well what really was happening, having been privy to intelligence briefings about the material of the 30 military5s 1aguba 9eport about Abu Ghraib as well as profiting from a very close relationship with former 30 attorney general 4ohn Ashcroft, he still ridiculed the concern about torture as a matter of suspects who have to sit on a stool instead of lounging in an easy-chair and who have their faces illuminated to study facial expressions. 9egarding Guantanamo, he ascribed it to the understandable American dilemma of what to do with the worst of the bad, a dilemma that required for him, too, the need to change international law and the Geneva <onventions. #o wonder, then, that he and =ischer obviously had no qualms about letting the <IA airlines use Germany for +rendition+ traffic. #o wonder, too, that both refused to lift a finger to rescue from Guantanamo a young German resident of 1ur,ish origin, who had lived all his life in Germany, innocent even to his interrogators, or to follow up on the ,idnapping of a German to Bagram. In the end, it was the images of Abu Ghraib that put paid to this effort to acclimati'e the Germans to the harsh demands of the global +war on terror+. But at least the legal innovations introduced by then-interior minister Ctto 0chily to get Germany on a civili'ational war footing - and those promulgated or ventilated by his successor, (olfgang 0chGuble - are fully compatible with the mindset and the intentions of the 30 *atriot Act. &'' illion s#(erfl#o#s )o#ng M#sli en )ie Eeit, once the leading liberal wee,ly, the standard-bearer of +secular humanism+ and enlightened Atlanticism, and now the flagship of German neoliberal neoconservatism, a hybrid of 1he #ew 9epublic and #ational 9eview, is indefatigable in its mission to convert its mostly educated readers to the new demands of the German alliance with Israel and the 30. It opened its pages to hate-mongers in social-science disguise whose wares bear an uncanny resemblance to those peddled in earlier days by the ideologues of the extreme right. Among those is sociologist Gunnar ;einsohn, professor at the 3niversity of Bremen where he heads the 9aphael Fem,in Institute for <omparative Genocide 9esearch. ;e maintains that the +youth bulge+ - the rapid increase of un- or underemployed young men in Islamic countries - presents the (est with the imperative of culling them to ,eep the terrorist threat from becoming unmanageable> either by instigating civil wars in these countries or by intervention 7one might call them +wars of demographic sanitation+8. In )ie Eeit he developed this thesis with reference to the problems the +civili'ed+ Israelis encounter in dealing with the terrorist barbarians and especially, with suicide bombers. 1he *alestinians, though, present for him not only the terrorist problem in a nutshell, but the spawn of a particularly depraved and defective society that even produces female suicide bombers. ;einsohn sees, therefore, no difference between the ;utu woman wielding a machete to slaughter her 1utsi neighbors and the *alestinian woman donning an explosive belt to slaughter innocent Israeli civilians. 1he publici'ed disgust with female suicide bombers, by the way, is limited to *alestinians. 1he <hechen women with explosive belts who threatened to ,ill a whole theater full of people in Doscow were treated in the German media with a great deal of understanding and commiseration. )isgust and rage were, instead, directed against the 9ussian authorities for their refusal to withdraw from <hechnya and for their victimi'ing the innocent theater audience. And when a school full of children was held hostage in Beslan, the German media, again, made the terrorists all but disappear behind

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their indignation and venom directed against the 9ussian authorities. =ollowing the lead of )ie Eeit, the high-brow formats of public 1: offered ;einsohn the opportunity to expand on his theses before a larger audience. And contemporary German philosopher *eter 0loterdi",, did not withhold his admiration for ;einsohn5s bold challenge to the pussyfooting humanitarians. And bold it is. ?ven the economists and race strategists of the 1hird 9eich did not anticipate the need to ,ill more than !-@! million subhumans during and after the victorious campaign against the 0oviet 3nion. In propagandi'ing the need to ta,e off the gloves in the fight against the Islamic threat, )ie Eeit recruited also a )utch writer of middle-brow novels, Feon de (inter. ;e exposed the hopelessly defective nature of Arab civili'ation, the inbred resistance to acculturation of the Duslim immigrants in ?urope, and the gynophobe 7or genocidal8 obscurantism of Islam. 0ince he preached this message often enough, one of the most prestigious German honors was bestowed on him. )ie Eeit also saw to the requirements of creating empathy with Israel5s struggle at the front lines of (estern civili'ation. Its publisher, 4osef 4offe, did see to it that one of his editorial team was embedded with one of the covert operations and assassination squads of the Israeli )efense =orce 7I)=8 to report about the pride and the suffering of those soldiers. At the same time, )ie Eeit refined the use of images, already characteri'ing the German media in toto, that opposes the dignified tears of a pretty young woman in an I)= uniform to the 1: images of howling, old Arab strumpets and menacingly strutting young men. 0imilar messages dominate the German media either in an even more vulgar fashion or somewhat less stridently. But there is virtually a complete absence of any challenge to its common denominator. 1he same holds true, by the way, for =rance - with the exception of the monthly Donde )iplomatique. #evertheless, the German general public seems to continue to resist at least its intended consequences. !The Ger ans ha*e to learn ho$ to +ill! 1hus, +the Germans have to learn how to ,ill+. 1his strange and most revealing conclusion about the German state of mind was brought bac, from a #A1C meeting at the end of last year by Barsten :oigt, the eternal 0ocial )emocratic +coordinator for German-American relations+. It was occasioned by the allied indignation 7American, <anadian, and )utch8 about the German refusal to do combat duty in +Cperation ?nduring =reedom+ in Afghanistan> the mandate of the German forces is still limited to reconstruction assistance, peace,eeping in the 1a"i, north, as well as policing and training duties. But since the German commitment there is already highly contentious and en"oys hardly any support among the German population, this sardonic comment is addressing more directly the failure of the German political class to create the climate for getting the +Germans to the front+ than "ust the limits of the Afghanistan commitment. And its meaning was not lost. =or a while, one might have been able to en"oy the spectacle of shamefaced German opinion-leaders barely able to restrain their impatience with the rabble they are forced to educate. 1o placate the allies, Germany sent six 1ornado reconnaissance planes to Afghanistan, either as the thin end of a wedge or as the timid admission that more is not possible under prevailing conditions. 1ime will tell what it is going to be. !The Ger ans ha*e to learn to ,ie! (hat has not yet been pic,ed up in the wider campaign of re-educating Germans is 9afael 0eligmann5s recent pronouncement that +the Germans have to learn to die+ in the +war of civili'ations+. 1hough a prominent novelist and "ournalist, and richly endowed with public honors, he obviously had lost his sangfroid. 1he purpose of the whole effort is, of course, about ,illing and dying, but the cooler heads among "ournalists and politicians ,now now - from the bac,lash of their earlier offensiveness - that the average German needs to be much more terrori'ed, beleaguered and anxious to be confronted with this truth. In the meanwhile, the dissatisfaction with the German mice refusing to roar found different venues of expression. A lead writer of )er 0piegel, ;endry, Broder, also showered with prestigious awards, too, last year5s failure of the Germans to rally in the streets, when they should have demonstrated

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their support for Israel and protested against the ;e'bollah +war of aggression+, as proof of the ineradicable German anti-semitism. And this is connecting well with the historical myths that have come to dominate the public discourse, particularly those which hold the German lower classes culpable for the German misfortunes of the last $!! years, the latest one being their reluctance to man the barricades for the defense of the (est. 1rying to leverage the German consensus on anti-semitism has become all the rage since a ma"ority of Germans turned against American 7and Israeli8 policies. 1he quasi-genetic disposition of Germans to +genocidal anti-semitism+ has become the first and last resort for explaining their recalcitrant pacifism. #evertheless, though the stridency of the consensual reporting and commenting in the German media seems to have somewhat leveled off with regard to the wider Diddle ?ast, there is another front line in the war of civili'ations where hostility and venom remains the only currency of media opinion - namely, 9ussia. 0o much so, in fact, that the large minority of the political class which considers normal relations with 9ussia possible and desirable has lost all influence on the public discourse. 1he rediscovery of the 9ussian enemy - also dating from around -!!-.-!!/ - and the demoni'ation of *utin5s 9ussia might have originated in the search for countermeasures to the crash of the American public image. But it has now reached a depth that only a large ma"ority of the political class - unafraid, at that, of a media campaign against it - could recondition the public discourse. 1his is highly improbable - for domestic as well as for American reasons. A new cold war with 9ussia is something the 9ussians fear far more than they are apt to let on and this fear has acquired a real and influential constituency. 1hough the (est might err about the ris,s, a cold war5s perceived benefits are simply too substantial to reconsider its wisdom. It is, of course, driven by the expectation that the 9ussians can be forced to return to the state of affairs that 30 Ambassador to the 3nited #ations Ealmay Bhalil'ad dubbed +adult supervision+. It may end in war born out of desperation. And war, the German war against the 0oviet 3nion, has become central to the myth ma,ing underlying so many of the efforts to reshape the German collective psyche. 1hough by the $%6!s, many German generals and senior officials had forgiven the 0oviets for defeating the (ehrmacht, the fashionable view now is that the 0oviet victory was illegitimate - because it was achieved by +0talinist methods+ - and that 0talin and ;itler were equally responsible for the war, and equally victimi'ers of the 0oviet population. But since democratic Germany repented its sins, and 9ussia didn5t, 9ussia will remain in thrall to its totalitarian heritage, and will still have to pay for the war it finally and "ustly lost in $%%$. 3ndergirding this caricature of history with applications for the present are endless series on public 1: about the 0oviet barbarian ineptness in fighting the war, the suffering of German women at the hands of 9ed rapists, about the strafing and torpedoing of refugees and refugee ships, the driving-out of Germans, and the 0oviet anti-semitic refusal to recogni'e the special place of the @ million 4ews among the -! million civilian victims of the German crusade against 4ewish Bolshevism. In fact, in connecting the debate among the Israeli right and the ideological continuity in those +history+ series, one might come to the conclusion that the German crime is the one of the ;olocaust of +innocent+ 4ews - innocent in the sense of non-communist. It is, therefore, completely unsurprising that the cry of +anti-semitism+ that meets any opposition to Israel5s policies and its propagandists, leaves the 4ewish non- or anti-Eionist left as it has always been, fair game. 3navoidably, these tales to shape the public conscience will eventually have effect. But for now they seem to have failed their mission. 1he polls still show a substantial ma"ority of Germans regarding 9ussia as non-threatening and basically benign. 1hough not for lac, of trying. Fast year5s climax of the efforts to ta,e down *utin in a public relations sense - with hopes, obviously, of getting the German public to scent blood - was an interview in the run-up to the G-6 *etersburg meeting.

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It was led by Daybrit Illner, a popular 1: political tal, show host ,nown as one of the three +<ompassionates+ 7as the =uries were eulogi'ed in classical times8 of public television. 0ince these events are always heavily scripted and choreographed with the involvement of the political appointees heading public 1:, there was nothing accidental or unforseen in its conduct. Illner waged this interview li,e a prosecutor interrogating a defendant. ;er +Hou don5t want us to believe+, +you tal, too long+, her pulling faces and interrupting *utin, demonstrated that her parents were quite amiss in teaching her manners. 1his was not a question of evading subservience or not challenging *utin, but she behaved in a fashion more appropriate for the old American shoc,-tal, 1: 4erry 0pringer 0how than for a serious political interview. 1hough *utin neither lost his smile nor his sangfroid, it was unavoidable that the Bremlin drew conclusions about the future of German-9ussian relations as well as about its ability to get a fair hearing for its point of view. 1his interview was even more remar,able for its contrast with an interview of *resident Bush by 0abine <hristiansen 7the second of the three <ompassionates8. ;er demeanor suggested a coyly suppressed obsequiousness and her challenge 7re Guantanamo8 dissolved in the shared relief about the upswing in 30-German relations and the wisdom of <hancellor Der,el. It was not +hail fellow, well met+ but the demonstration of measured awe before the burdens of the president5s office, of the willingness to have the world explained for the yo,els at home, and of a slight willingness to succumb to the manly charms of power. Both interviews are emblematic for the hormonal change of German policies and their public debate. It does not matter in the longer run whether the German population will vicariously parta,e in its thrills or not. (hat counts is that the German political class is gorged with the will to follow its temptations, losing in the process prudence and reason. 1he American political elites are already failing2 the German ones are following suit. Axel Brot is the pen name for a German defense analyst and former intelligence officer. 7<opyright -!!&, Axel Brot8

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