SPIEGEL Forum How Normal is Germany?
SPIEGEL:
Mr. Fischer, why is it that the Third Reich is still so present today, 60 years after its downfall?
Fischer: Because the Hitler dictatorship was a process of national self-destruction that still hasn't been completely explained nor have we really come to terms with it. To this day, our country is deeply traumatized. No one poses the question "Am I normal?" when they are, indeed, normal. Only people who truly have a problem ask a question like that, and we do have a problem.
In his famous work on Germany's history ("Der lange Weg nach Westen" -- "The Long Path to the West"), Professor Winkler traced the political process of western integration. But it seems we haven't really arrived at ourselves. My thesis is this: We are not having a debate about what we did to ourselves. The Nazis destroyed this wonderful country in the name of Germany. In fact -- and this is the main break with German history -- they destroyed the soul of this country.
SPIEGEL: Mr. Winkler, is it true that the events of the Nazi period seem to come ever closer the further May 8, 1945 slides into the past?
Winkler: It is, in fact, true that the reflection on the causes and consequences of the German catastrophe has become more intense over time. This country's history has been characterized by the seeming paradox that Germany not only belonged to the West, the Occident, culturally and socially -- it also helped shape it. And then a catastrophe takes place in this country -- a catastrophe that has to be classified as being a singular one.
SPIEGEL: What's the difference between Germany's history and that of other traditional Western democracies?
Winkler: Above all else: Germany became a nation-state much later than England and France did, and it took even longer to become a democracy. The Bismarck reign saw Germany solving the national question. But still, it wasn't a solution to the issue of freedom, because at that time, Germany had no parliament to hold the regime in check. That finally happened in the wake of Germany's World War I defeat, which was the beginning of the road toward catastrophe. Germany's elites associated democracy with defeat and large parts of society saw it the same way.
SPIEGEL: Does that mean that the really difficult issue to grasp is the road to World War I and not the road to World War II?
Winkler: The road to World War I marked what the late historian and diplomat George F. Kennan called the "Seminal Catastrophe of the 20th Century." The German elites' unwillingness to face up to their own war guilt played was a key part of the heritage that the Weimar Republic had to deal with from the start. In essence, a bridge was built between the educated Germans and Hitler. It was based on the assumption that only "the Reich" would be destined to lead Europe in its fight against the Bolshevist East and against the democratic West. If it hadn't been for that backing among the educated Germans, Hitler would not have risen to power and he wouldn't have remained in power for 12 years, either.
SPIEGEL: Mr. Fischer, after you spoke to the United Nations in January, you said that it was your most difficult speech. Where did the pressure the come from? You could've said: "I wasn't there, I don't feel guilty."
Fischer: It was a special session commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. During the session, the only topics were the perpetrators and one country: Germany. It would be a mistake to believe that the topic will just go away when we put an end to the discussion. This is not about individual guilt; this is about us as a nation. We have to face up to it.
SPIEGEL: Before you became Foreign Minister and thus a representative of a reunified Germany, did you realize that the past is so close?
Fischer: I was always aware of the fact, because I saw the failure of all discussions about bringing about closure to our past. There's more to German history than those 12 years of the Nazi reign. However, if you want to learn and grasp German history, you cannot do it without those 12 years, either. We would severely damage ourselves if we lived under the illusion that we could blow it all off -- that it will go to the grave along with the generation that directly experienced those times and that the Third Reich is merely something for historians.
Winkler: Our central and eastern European neighbors keep reminding us that they had a history of dictatorship even after 1945. We also need to take that period into consideration when we reflect on our own, jointly experienced history. But we need to be very clear: This debate is also about coming to terms self-critically with the role many European peoples played and accomplices in the destruction of European Jewry. There are many shortcomings in that respect.
SPIEGEL: Do you not see a danger that the crimes of the Nazis could be relativized through such a discussion?
Winkler: There is no question about Germany's primary responsibility and guilt. On the other hand, however, Europe has to make a push to get other peoples to address their nationalistic pasts. Otherwise, a common political culture cannot emerge in Europe.
SPIEGEL: Mr. Fischer, do you agree?
Part Two: Should Germans have a say in the histories of its neighbors?
Fischer: No, and I am not sure that we are qualified to point issues like that out in the first place. Experience has taught us that this type of process will, in most cases, emerge on its own, from the inside out. Poland recently provided a good example of that, when the state president alluded to a pogrom against Polish Jews. I believe that we can base our efforts on traditional European guiding principles: the principles of human rights, the rule of law, democracy, individual freedom, and social equity. In addition, there are specific national facets to each country's respective history, as well as challenges resulting from that. But whether we as Germans should have a say in the history of our neighbors? There I have major reservations.
Winkler: I just returned from a discussion at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, where Bronislaw Geremek, for a while the Polish foreign minister, stressed the importance of joint historic recollection. He argued that political culture needs a historical foundation. I think he's right: We need to try to come to terms with European history as our joint history. That is neither exclusively nor primarily a job for the Germans. Where would we be headed if we were indifferent to the fact that the genocide against the Armenians (by the Turks) 90 years ago is suppressed? As the German Reich, we were accomplices at the time. We made ourselves guilty as well. We cannot be indifferent if a country wanting to join the EU thinks it can deny genocide.
Fischer: I have a completely different opinion on that. You should really be praising the EU because this very difficult debate on the (Armenian genocide) currently underway in Turkey is the result of a rapprochement process between Turkey and the European Union. Membership is only possible if this road is continued. However, why do historians today already claim to know precisely which developments will unfold in Turkey over the next 10 or 15 years when the ultimate decision about Turkey's EU membership will be made?
During the entire Cold War era, the West needed Turkey. It is truly absurd that we are excluding this country from Europe, while at the same time assuming that the main threat in the first half of the 21st century doesn't come from the East, but from the South East, and that our most important task is transforming the region. We are very interested to see Turkey's modernization become a success. And this modernization means "Europeanization." The political generation that has a say then will make the decision. I think that by then, the suspicions now surrounding Turkey will have disappeared. If that happens, great. If it doesn't, Turkey won't be allowed in.
Winkler: Mr. Fischer, it's not enough if the European Commission merely talks about tragic events in its progress report from last October. One simply cannot merely ignore the genocide against Armenians in a tactical-diplomatic manner. Instead, this topic has to be addressed and discussed openly.
In my view, this entire debate is taking place much too late. Far-reaching decisions on European policy were reached without a prior public debate. Only after the fact was a discussion really allowed. This type of ex-post policy works well in states governed by absolutism and Bonapartism, but it doesn't fit with democracy. Public discourses are necessary. Otherwise, we will provoke exactly that form of Euro-skepticism that could cause the referendum for the European Constitution to fail in France. God forbid.
Fischer: It's simply not true when you say there was no public debate. If you consider the developments over the past few weeks and months in the discussion between Armenia and Turkey, between historians on both sides, then you'll see the beneficial effect this process really has. What we should say is "well done, carry on."
Winkler: For me, the crucial question is: What did we really learn from the German catastrophe, the topic at hand here? Surely, it would be wrong to derive a greater German morality from our past. But as we follow the human rights discussion going on right now, I ask myself now whether we are not moving toward a role as impartial arbiter -- not just in Germany, but also in other European states. In the case of France's president Jacques Chirac, that's quite clear. I ask myself whether your thesis -- that Europe cannot yet keep pace with America, India, China, or Russia in terms of size and space -- isn't actually misleading.
SPIEGEL: Are you advocating a Europe with fewer EU member states?
Winkler: Looking ahead to the potential membership of Bulgaria and Romania, I ask myself: Are the questions of political culture so unimportant that they can be thrust aside in this whole discussion? Is it so unimportant that decisions are reached without public discourse, instead? If that's the case, then a credibility crisis for the project Europe will ultimately develop, and I'm even afraid that the same will happen to democracy as well.
SPIEGEL: Professor Winkler, do you believe that the road toward the West is currently actually leading away from the West?
Winkler: No. In fact, I believe that the long road toward the West entails that we may occasionally remind our western neighbors -- including America -- that the western standards that they helped develop apply to them, too. Of course the Germans are allowed to discuss whether the Guantanamo Bay camps are legitimate. Those are standards -- standards of inalienable human rights -- which every Western nation must adhere to. And we must judge current members and candidate countries wanting to join the EU by those standards as well.
Fischer: If your thesis is, in fact, true, Mr. Professor, then the EU has already failed at its core, because it would mean that even France is turning its back on what you advocate. I think this is a grotesque and faulty analysis.
Winkler: Many French share my view.
Fischer: It doesn't reflect the realities, though. European integration is not a technocratic project. Instead, the EU was created when the European system of states failed. Even in your book "The Long Path to the West," you used the German example very well to describe how sovereign nation states no longer try to counterbalance each other but rather sacrifice parts of their sovereignty. In the West, this new idea worked on the basis of Europe's security guarantee, and it helped Europe to an exemplary era of peace, stability, and economic progress. It was a Western European integration process, limited by the Wall and barbed wire, because Europe's division and the Cold War did not allow for more at the time.
SPIEGEL: Can this integration process easily be transferred to the Eastern European states now?
Fischer: This idea of European unification -- that our continent no longer looks for an outlet in wars and nationalism, but that, instead, the peoples are anchored in peace and cooperation in the common institutions and bodies, -- is so attractive in this post-Cold War era that other nations want to be part of it, too. It's in Germany's best interest that the border doesn't run between a Western European union but that we overcome this barrier. And in the way in which that applied to Poles, Slovaks, and Hungarians, it applies to Romanians and Bulgarians as well.
SPIEGEL: Do Romania and Bulgaria really meet the Western standards of democracy and human rights?
Fischer: Considering the experience with the collapse of Yugoslavia -- namely the Yugoslavian wars -- how can anyone close his eyes to the fact that our continent cannot cope with the co-existence of a nationalist Europe and an integrationist Europe. The Serbian nationalist Slobodan Milosevic confronted us in integrationist Europe with a question of power by sliding back into a Europe of nationalism.
Nationalism is the plague of Europe. There is no other alternative than to offer these enlargement candidates a long-term perspective in Brussels.
SPIEGEL: It's a legitimate question, though, how far Europe is to be expanded....
Winkler: I refuse to simply see Europe's borders in geographic terms. All European countries that have convincingly opened themselves to the West's political culture can also become EU members. One cannot deny them the prospect of membership, and that certainly applies to Ukraine as well.
But during the negotiations, the touchy points will have to be addressed. The EU officials will have to openly discuss with Romania the heritage of the Securitate secret police and the shortcomings in creating a constitutional state and a division of power in Romania. At least in Romania's case, the entry date January 1, 2007 is too soon. The fact remains: There are vast differences between Romania and the Eastern European countries with a strong Western touch, the countries that joined on May 1, 2004. That's the result of different historic developments that a politician shouldn't be able to blithely deny.
