Given the generally anti-Iraq war stance of Germany, it is not surprising that the German press is not terribly optimistic about the current US attempt to quash unrest in Falluja. With American troops fighting their way into the city on Tuesday, the left-leaning Sueddeutsche Zeitung wonders if even an unreserved victory in Falluja will be able to break the back of the Iraqi struggle against the Americans. "Falluja," the paper points out, "is more than just a city. It is now a symbol of the resistance." As such, it will be extremely difficult for the American military to win a clear victory. "While the United States fights for each house, the resistance fighters are more concerned with symbols and with resistance in its most basic form. If it can't be continued in Falluja, then it will continue somewhere else."

The Berlin daily Berliner Zeitung takes a similar tack by focusing on the symbolic importance of Falluja to the resistance. The paper also points out that, because interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi has given his support for the offensive and invoked emergency powers in preparing for it, his position as head of Iraq may well be decided on the Falluja battlefields. Yet, the paper writes, it doesn't look good. "Despite its military superiority, the USA doesn't have a chance. The insurgents will try to hold out for as long as possible in every street, every house. They need pictures and TV reports with many dead, destroyed mosques and citizens in despair. Falluja will become a synonym for martyrdom."

There is one German paper, however, that casts a slightly more positive light on the offensive -- the conservative daily Die Welt. It argues that, despite the return to high-powered weaponry and the "Shock and Awe"-like invasion of the city, there is no other choice. Falluja is the home of most of the primary resistance fighters in Iraq, it continues, and "that means that this battle, if it isn't interrupted half-way through, could really break the back of the resistance." There are, of course, dangers that it might not succeed, but Falluja is the last chance "for both sides."

But it is less today's news than the memories of what happened here 15 years ago -- the fall of the Berlin Wall -- that capture Germans' imaginations today. The creative, left-leaning paper Tageszeitung for example, turn over their entire paper Tuesday to journalists from Eastern Germany.

While articles in the TAZ cover all aspects of the ongoing project of reunification, its main editorial is provided by the president of the German parliament, Wolfgang Thierse (who comes from the east.) He makes a plea to Western Germany to not make Eastern Germany the scapegoat for Germany's current economic problems. He also writes that the west should look to the east for lessons on how to push through reforms at a quicker pace than they have been to date. "I am sure that the entire country could profit today from the drive, the speed and the desire for change we Eastern Germans still have in our recent memory. If it wanted to."

The financial daily Handelsblatt takes a closer look at the culture of memory in Germany and notes that November 9, 1989 continues to be a problematic date for the country. It notes that even 15 years later, "there is absolutely no unified concept for memorializing the fall of the Wall." This, the paper writes, is a problem that needs to be addressed. "To live without memory means to live without identity and orientation," it warns. But, "the more the Germans unify, the more they will memorialize their common past."

Handelsblatt hit a note that is widely discussed in Tuesday's papers -- namely, that the Germany of 2004 is having a very difficult time finding anything positive about itself in this year of reform and hand-wringing about a sluggish economy. The conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung mentions as symptomatic of this apparent syndrome the government's recent proposal to move German Reunification Day (October 3) to the nearest Sunday as a means of increasing economic production. "Fifteen years after the experience of 1989, the Germans can pull no strength or confidence out of the unification. How positive must historical events be?"