Sometimes, abnormality can best be measured by the insistence with which "normality" is proclaimed. A young German explained to me recently that the problems once associated with national identity are now solved. His close friends, after all, are from different European countries. "I don't feel German, I feel European." His statement proved the opposite. Even the most pro-European Italian, Pole or Swede sees him or herself not just as a European, but wears national identity with pride. Only the German continues frantically to insist: "National identity? Old hat!"

And yet, in many respects, Germany is changing -- at a startling speed. When I return to Germany now, it is almost unrecognizable, in terms of abandoned taboos, from the country where I lived as a newspaper correspondent only a decade ago.

Many debates from that period are a mere historical curiosity. At that time, the German opponents of a move to Berlin continued to insist that a Berlin Republic would be a dangerous monster, and would send a damaging message worldwide. Bonn was presented not as a symbol of democracy but as a condition of German democracy -- without Bonn, there could be no stable future. It is a welcome sign of normality, if that peculiar discussion is finally over.

The subject of German soldiers was even more sensitive. In 1995, proposed German involvement in a no-fly zone over Bosnia caused national uproar -- "because of the German past". Terrible German crimes in the 1940s were deemed (follow the logic, if you can; I always had difficulty in doing so) to make it inappropriate for Germans to prevent civilian massacres half a century later. Only four years later, when German ground troops arrived in Kosovo, they were greeted with flowers; if German troops in Kosovo or Afghanistan are criticized today, it is not because they do too much but because they do too little. When Germany says "no" to military involvement in Iraq, it is no longer the old complacent cry ("We're Germans, we couldn't possibly"), but because Germany feels able to defy the wishes of Washington -- another welcome sign of normality.

Above all when it comes to historical memory, today's Germany is different. In previous decades, Germans who emphasised the country's suffering in 1945 were often reluctant to address German crimes. Those Germans who talked about German historical crimes, by contrast, ignored German suffering. Gunter Grass's Crabwalk and Joerg Friedrich's Der Brand (The Fire), and a slew of television programs, have destroyed that unnatural symmetry.

The remaining taboos

Some taboos remain strong, even now -- so strong that many Germans insist they are not taboos, but self-evident necessity. Mein Kampf can be found in good bookshops in London, Paris and New York. The English translation is by Ralph Manheim, renowned for his translations of Bertolt Brecht and Grass. The cover blurb notes that the book is "necessary reading material for those who seek to understand the Holocaust, for students of totalitarian psychology, and for those who care to safeguard democracy." But if one were to ask for a copy in a German bookshop.... Unthinkable, of course. A few decades ago, it was still argued that "the bacillus [is] too lively, the danger of infection too acute". Germans rightly become indignant if foreign commentaries imply that the Third Reich is in danger of being re-established. But how else can one explain the Mein Kampf ban? The achievement of normality is connected with the new honesty. A society which seeks to bury its past remains unstable, as was the case with the Federal Republic in the 1950s and 1960s. President Gustav Heinemann said in 1969: "There are some difficult fatherlands, and Germany is one of them." One reason was that confrontation with history had scarcely begun.

The prescribed schoolbooks of the 1950s were crammed with so many half-truths that, reading them today -- they are gathered in the remarkable collection of the Institute for Schoolbook Research in Braunschweig -- one shakes one's head in astonishment. After the publication of Crabwalk, German commentators suggested that the theme of the expellees' suffering had been taboo since 1945. In reality, history books throughout the 1950s spoke at great length of the "indescribable misery" of the expellees. "Overcrowded refugee steamships sank in the Baltic Sea, and fleeing people went on endless treks where they often starved or froze to death." In these books, the mass murder which the Germans themselves so painstakingly organized is barely mentioned. (Still less were the brutal mass deportations which the Germans organized in the first months after invading Poland mentioned even in passing.) A typical sentence reads: "Appalling suffering befell millions of Germans in ways we didn't think would be possible again in the 20th century." But names like Auschwitz and Sobibor are invisible.

Later, the pattern was reversed. The schoolbooks were silent on German suffering; German crimes, by contrast, were endlessly discussed. Only now, in the new century -- and this is the real definition of normality -- is Germany a country of both-and. The scale of German crimes was (even) greater than the crimes against Germans which followed. But neither set of crimes can be buried. That new understanding is an important step forward; there can be no going back.

Confronting history through film

There has been much excitement, in Germany and abroad, about the taboo-breaking film The Downfall, with its humanization of Hitler. Some critics note that the film contains few direct references to the Holocaust. But that misses the point. The film is framed by the knowledge that all the events of those days, including the suffering of ordinary Berliners, take place in the context of unthinkable German crimes. Crucially, it is framed by the interview with an elderly Traudl Junge, who notes that Sophie Scholl was executed in the same year that she herself went to work for Hitler. "It was at that moment that I finally realized that being young was not an excuse. We could have figured out what was happening."

Such confrontations with the past are a crucial element of Germany's emerging new normality. The quality of not-forgetting is an important reason why the fatherland is no longer so difficult. When today's leaders declare: "I love this country", few Germans are shocked.

Many of my English compatriots still have problems with this emerging normality. At one level, this British retrospection is understandable. Every country likes to have reasons to feel proud, and Britain is no exception. Victory against Hitler's Germany remains a treasured memory. During the Battle of Britain and the years that followed, most of Europe was occupied by the Nazis and the Nazis' friends. For older Londoners especially, there are nostalgic memories of the "Blitz spirit" -- solidarity in the face of Hitler's bombs.

The obsession with modern Germany is, it must be said, less comprehensible -- as if today's Germany had hardly changed. A British columnist, writing about the success of Der Brand, and its savage descriptions of the aerial war against Germany, asked: "With four million unemployed in Germany, is this the fertile ground in which a new National Socialism might take root?" The obvious answer is: "Not really, no." In Britain, however, rhetorical questions like this remain provocatively unanswered.

The British attitude is illogical. But the Germans should react with less stress -- almost as if they were the ordinary Europeans which they would like to be. When the French are criticized, they barely respond. Comfortable with their own identity, they do not react to the midge-bites. Still in search of normality, the Germans have not yet reached that state of calm.

Part Two: Why Germans should be proud.

There are, of course, many reasons for gloom. Despite all the talk, it sometimes seems that confrontation with the problems of the economy has barely begun. Many western Germans especially are still in denial about how luxurious, by the standards of other Europeans, are the standards to which Germans are accustomed. Things look set to get worse before they can get better. The divisions within Germany, too, run deeper than seemed imaginable. Fifteen years on from the fall of the Wall, it is still a matter of "one passport, two countries".

There are, however, reasons for hope. These include the undiminished remembrance of Germany's dark history. They also include the fragile memory of a German miracle. The fall of the Wall on Nov. 9, 1989, was an astonishing day for all Europe. In some respects, however, even more astonishing were events in Leipzig a month earlier.

On Oct. 9, for the first time in history, German courage defeated a dictatorship. The authorities had publicly announced their readiness to stage a repeat of the Tiananmen Square massacre, just four months earlier. They were ready to defend socialism, "If we have to, we will with weapons in our hand!" That afternoon, before the service in the Nikolaikirche, I counted 15 trucks with armed militias in one sidestreet alone. Everybody was waiting for the bloodbath; the casualty wards were cleared. At the last moment, however, the unelected rulers were more afraid of the people than the people were afraid of their rulers. Witnessing that historic retreat before the crowds marked some of the most extraordinary moments of my life. My expulsion by the Stasi later that night did nothing to diminish the sense of privilege at being present in Leipzig. No hindsight was needed to understand that the fall of the Wall became inevitable that day. One only needed to understand that society itself is sometimes more powerful than even the most powerful politicians.

In western Germany, the significance of that day is often too little understood. But Oct. 9 is an important fragment of the new German normality. It is a day of which Germans -- above all, eastern Germans -- can be proud. And Germany, too, needs reasons for pride.

Britons have missed Germany's transformation

My compatriots are sometimes unwilling to understand the generational changes which have made all the other changes possible. Some appear to believe that Basil Fawlty, John Cleese's crazed hotel manager in "Fawlty Towers," was right, after all. "Don't mention the war," was Basil's famous mantra, as he goosestepped his way around the dining room. Thirty years later, it sometimes seems that Basil is alive and well in the UK.

But the problems are not just to do with foreign prejudice - that is too easy a target for blame. The word "patriotism" is constantly floated, but still causes a frisson. That is partly because of the long shadow of history. In addition, there are problems of Germany's own making, with the simple question: who is a German? Life would be easier if there was a better understanding that, in 21st century Europe, soil can be as important as blood in determining identity. Those who proudly call themselves British -- including government ministers, leading businessmen, and (earlier this month) the country's "national mastermind" in a popular BBC television program -- have different colored skins, and parents or grandparents who were born in different parts of the world. In Germany, meanwhile, the phrase "ausländische Mitbürger" (foreign fellow-citizens) continues to underline the "otherness" of those with names like Mehmet, even if Mehmet's native language is German. A looser definition of patriotism could at the same time be a more secure kind of patriotism, not least because Mehmet has no connection, even at several removes, with the Third Reich. Nor is the new danger of terrorism a reason for a society to turn further inward on itself. On the contrary. A society which closes in on itself also becomes less safe.

Germany will find it hard to achieve normality, if that normality is demanded right now! or if there is an insistence on seeing German historical crimes "in context". But, when the relativisers remain silent, a new relaxedness may come of its own accord. The philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote: "Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness.... Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way." If one replaces the words "happy" and "happiness" with "normal" and "normality", one has a reasonable description of the paradox facing Germany and the Germans today. German politicians who become obsessed with achieving normality achieve the opposite. But, when Germans have their minds fixed on some other object than their own normality, they may find normality by the way.

The process of normalization continues

Year by year and month by month, the taboos continue to crumble. The Producers -- the magnificently bad-taste musical whose best known number is "Springtime for Hitler" -- has been a giant box-office success in New York and London. When the production opened on Broadway three years ago, a German staging seemed unimaginable. The taboo was too strong, the virus too lively. Now, discussions are under way: it may only to be a matter of time before German audiences, too, roar with laughter and applaud "Springtime for Hitler," as delighted Londoners and New Yorkers already do.