Germany has always been the problem child of Europe. For
over a millennium it was no more than a loose confederation of
separate states and territories, whose number at times topped the
thousand mark. When unification belatedly came about in 1871, it
was achieved almost exclusively by military might; as a direct
result of this, the new nation was consumed by a thirst for power
and expansion abroad. Defeat in World War I only led to a desire
for revenge, the consequence of which was the Third Reich, a regime
bent on mass genocide and an European, indeed world, domination. It
took another tragic global war to crush this system and its people.
When the victors quarrelled over how to prevent Germany ever again
becoming dominant, they divided it into two hostile states; the
parts held by the Western powers were developed into the Federal
Republic of Germany , while the eastern zone occupied by the
Soviets became the German Democratic Republic .
The contest between the two was an unequal one - the GDR, never
able to break free from being a client state of the Soviet Union
and forced to adopt a Communist system at odds with the national
character, had fallen so far behind its rival in living standards
that in 1961 the authorities constructed electrified barbed-wire
frontier, with the Berlin Wall as its lynchpn, to halt
emigration - the first time in the history of the world that a
fortification system had been erected by a regime against its own
people. Thereafter, the society settled down, but the GDR was a
grey, cheerless place whose much trumpeted economic success was a
mirage, and bought at the price of terrible pollution problems.
On the other hand, the Federal Republic - which was seen as the
natural successor to the old Reich, if only on account of its size
- had not only picked itself up by the boot-straps, but developed
into what many outsiders regarded as a model modern society
. A nation with little in the way of a liberal tradition, and even
less of a democratic one, quickly developed a degree of political
maturity that put other countries to shame. In atonement for past
sins, the new state committed itself to providing a haven for
foreign refugees and dissidents. It also became a multiracial and
multicultural society - even if the reason for this was less one of
penance than the self-interested need to acquire extra cheap labour
to fuel the economic boom. A delicate balance was struck between
the old and the new. Historic town centres were immaculately
restored, while the corporate skyscrapers and well-stocked
department stores represented a commitment to a modern consume
society. Vast sums of money were lavished on preserving the best of
the country cultural legacy, yet equally generous budgets were
allocated to encouraging all kinds of contemporary expression in
the arts.
Officially, the Federal Republic was always a "provisional"
state, biding its time before national reunification occurred. Yet
there was a realization that nobody outside Germany was really much
in favour of this. "I love Germany so much I'm glad there are two
of them", scoffed the French novelist François Mauriac,
articulating the unspoken gut reactions of the powers on both sides
of the Iron Curtain. German division may have been cruel, but at
least it had provided a lasting solution to the German "problem".
Such thinking was rendered obsolete by the unstoppable momentum of
events in the wake of the Wende , the peaceful revolution
that toppled the Communist regime in the GDR in 1989, leading to
the full union of the two Germanys less than a year later. Yet
initial euphoria has been quickly replaced by concern about the
myriad problems facing the new nation as it attempts to integrate
the bankrupt social and economic system of the GDR into the
successful framework of the Federal Republic. While Germany may
officially be one again, it will certainly continue to look and
feel like two separate countries until the end of the century - and
probably well beyond. Moreover, international pressure had ensured
that, far from being a re-creation of the old Reich, it can be no
more than the nineteenth-century concept of a Kleines
Deutschland ("little Germany"), excluding not only Austria but
also the "lost" Eastern Territories, which are now part of Poland,
the Czech Republic and the Russian Federation.
In total contrast to Germany's intristic fascination as the
country which has played such a determining role in the history of
the twentieth century is its otherwise predominantly romantic
image . This is the land of fairy-tale castles, of thick dark
forests, of the legends collected by the Brothers Grimm, of
perfectly preserved timber-framed medieval towns, and of jovial
locals swilling from huge foaming mugs of beer. As always, there
is some truth in these stereotypes, though most of them stem
from the southern part of the country, particularly Bavaria
, which, as a predominantly rural and Catholic area, stands apart
from the urbanized Protestant north which engineered the unity of
the nation last century and thereafter dominated its affairs.
Regional characteristics , indeed, are a strong feature
of German life, and there are many hangovers from the days when the
country was a political patchwork, even though some historical
provinces have vanished from the map and others have merged.
Hamburg and Bremen , for example, retain their
age-old status as free cities. The imperial capital, Berlin
, also stands apart, as an island in the midst of the erstwhile GDR
where the liberalism of the West was pushed to its extreme,
sometimes decadent, always exciting. In polar opposition to it, and
as a corrective to the normal view of the Germans as an essentially
serious race, is the Rhineland , where the great river's
majestic sweep has spawned a particularly rich fund of legends and
folklore, and where the locals are imbued with a Mediterranean-type
sense of fun. The five new Länder which have supplanted the
GDR, and in particular the small towns and rural areas, are in many
ways the ones which best encapsulate the feel and appearance of
Germany as it was before the war and the onset of foriegn
influences which were an inevitable consequence of defeat.