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From the national stateto the rational state andback? An exercise inunderstanding politics andidentity in Germany in thetwentieth centuryMatthias Zimmer aa TU Darmstadt, Institut frPolitikwissenschaft,Version of record first published: 28 Sep 2007.

To cite this article: Matthias Zimmer (1999): From the national state to therational state and back? An exercise in understanding politics and identity inGermany in the twentieth century, German Politics, 8:3, 21-42

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From the National State to the RationalState and Back? An Exercise in

Understanding Politics and Identity inGermany in the Twentieth Century

MATTHIAS ZIMMER

The end of the EastWest conflict and the unification of Germany in1990 have dramatically altered the geopolitical shape of Europe.Speculations abound, in particular as regards Germany: have thespectres of German nationalism been banished for good? Is the newBerlin Republic different from the Bonn Republic? This article tracesthe national idea in Germany since the early nineteenth century andargues that the Bonn years have been crucial in the development of acivic culture which transcends the concept of a nation dominant inGermany from 1871 to 1945. Rather than marking a return oftraditional nationalist concepts, the unification of Germany may wellopen the way for a lasting reorientation towards a civic concept ofnational identity in Germany.

In the early 1980s it was considered unfashionable to be concerned withissues like nation, in particular in the German context. 'Nation' wassomething reserved for the annual Bericht zur Lage der Nation im geteiltenDeutschland, an exercise in political rhetoric no one really took seriously,except some stick-in-the-muds. The national history, according to the thenprevalent 'discourse', had come to an end in 1945. In the early 1980s wediscussed Brandt and Ammon's collection Die Linke und die NationaleFrage and were somewhat puzzled by the attempt of both authors toestablish a lineage of national thought in the left camp. Even moresurprising was Wolfgang Venohr's book Die deutsche Einheit kommtbestimmt, a collection of essays from what at the time was considered theright and the left side of the political spectrum. Both seemed to meet in ananti-Western and pro-national perspective.1 There were others, like Hans

Matthias Zimmer, TU Darmstadt, Institut fr Politikwissenschaft

German Politics, Vol.8, No.3 (December 1999), pp.21^2PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON

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22 GERMAN POLITICS

Joachim Arndt, Bernard Willms, Hans-Dietrich Sander, Armin Mohler,Caspar von Schrenck-Notzing and Henning Eichberg, who espoused similarviews.2 Yet they, too, seemed to be either hopelessly anachronistic or justdeliberately provocative. After all, the national question was a non-issue,and focusing on something amorphous like 'nation' was analyticallyunsound and, in today's phrase, politically incorrect. 'Collective identity'was acceptable as a frame of reference, because it opened new perspectivesand did not burden the analysis with the emotional subcontext of nation.Karl Jaspers had already summarised in 1960 what seemed to be theconsensus in the 1980s:

The history of the German national state has come to a close, but notthe history of the German people. What we can pass on to our greatnation and to the world is the insight derived from our currentsituation, namely, that the idea of the national state is an evil forEurope and all other continents. While the idea of the national state isthe main destructive potential of the world, we can begin tounderstand its roots and overcome it.3

This was, it seemed, the new spirit: a farewell to nation and nationalism, anda warm welcome to Germany's model existence with her 'postnationalidentity'.4 Germany was exemplary in her enlightened spirit that hadtranscended the parochial confines of national identity. But what aboutunification, what about the 'German question'? At best a nostalgicreminiscence dear to the older generation, at worst transparent politicalrhetoric no one believed in anyway. Unification was definitely not an issue;it was, as Willy Brandt's controversial comment suggested, the 'distinctiveself-perception of the second German Republic'.5 To be more precise: itseemed more like the distinctive self-perception of particular politicalgenerations. Those who were socialised in the Bonn Republic did not seemto equate the German question with national unification. Somethingdifferent was at stake, but not unification; the well-known publicist PeterBender, one of the icons of Ostpolitik thinking, summarised it in 1989: "Thecontent of the German question has changed. It is not about unity, butcommunality; it is not the division of Germany that has to be overcome, butthe separation.'6

Looking back to the 1980s through the looking glass of unification itmay indeed seem odd that the national idea was held in such disregard inthe 1980s. The thesis is that even though we do witness something like arevival of the idea of the nation, it is very much different from previousexperiences. For the first time since the founding of the Reich in 1871German history provides an opportunity to integrate the romantic notion ofthe nation with its potential for political emancipation; in other words,

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UNDERSTANDING POLITICS AND IDENTITY IN GERMANY 23

combine the ethnic and the civic dimension, while at the same timeseparating state and power on the one side, and community and identity onthe other. Yet the article also argues that earlier suspicions about the nationin the contemporary world were not so misguided after all. Nations andnationalism, although they seem to have staged a comeback with avengeance, are concepts of the past and will not prevail in the future, at leastnot in the form we know them.

GERMAN NATIONALISM IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Nationalism, according to Elie Kedourie, is a doctrine invented in Europe atthe beginning of the nineteenth century.7 What distinguishes this politicaldoctrine of Gemeinschaft from previous usage of 'nation' is that thismodern version is closely linked to the secular state and the FrenchRevolution. Moreover, and more importantly, nation and nationalism arepolitical ideologies of the emerging bourgeoisie, the middle classes.Nationalism as the political programme of an imagined nation is anti-dynastic and combines the quest for political emancipation in the form ofthe constitutional, liberal democratic state with the idea that mankind isdivided into nations and that those nations are entitled to their own state.The nation state becomes the political manifestation of the industrialsociety. Industrial society, nation state and political emancipation of thebourgeoisie mutually reinforce each other.

From its very beginning, nationalism had two components: a civiccomponent, aimed at creating a constitutional state, and an ethnic andcultural component, naming the political subject of nationalism and aimingto establish a congruence of nation and state. Nationalism carrieddemocratic ideas and vice versa. In Germany, this was particularlypronounced at the Hambach Festival in 1832, where German unity andconstitutional liberty were at the core of the political agenda. Whereas in the1820s and 1830s there was a deep sympathy for other nations trying tothrow off their oppressors, German nationalism added a more unpleasantfeature in the 1840s. Following a statement of French Foreign MinisterThiers threatening to revise the order of 1815 and extend France's bordersto the Rhine and the Alps, German nationalism took an anti-French turn andturned inwards to unify all German territories; the Rheinlied and the famousfirst stanza of Hoffmann von Fallersleben's poem Deutschland,Deutschland tiber alles geographically marked the shape of Germany as an'imagined territory'.

In Europe, nationalism took on different forms, depending on thepolitical context. In France, England and Spain nationalism meant theintegration of a territory by the state. In Germany and Italy, it meant

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24 GERMAN POLITICS

bringing disjointed territories together. In other geographical areas, mostnotably in eastern and south-eastern Europe, nationalism was primarily astrategy of cessation and independence: cessation from the larger OttomanEmpire or the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire.8 Those types, asmuch as they have to be differentiated to fit each specific case, neverthelesspoint to one important aspect: German nationalism was different fromnationalism and nation building in both the West and in the East. Not onlywas the development of the German national consciousness 'singularlyrapid',9 it was even more the political development of German nationalismduring the nineteenth century which set the tone for the German nation stateafter 1871. This does not imply that the Germans followed a fatalSonderweg, a special path setting them apart from all other westernEuropean nations. History's basic pattern is, as Thomas Nipperdey hasreminded us, not black and white, the contrast of a chess board; rather itsbasic colour is grey in endless degrees.10 Yet looking at the processes andoutcomes of national unification in Germany, there were four importantfactors that would prove to be pivotal for the course of German history.

(1) The split of liberal and national ideas following the revolution in 1848which became politically cemented with the founding of the Reich in 1871.Indeed, as Bismarck once bluntly stated, Germany did not look towardsPrussia for its liberalism, but for its power. The unification from abovecreated an authoritarian structure in which the bourgeoisie becameeffectively excluded from political participation. One of the consequenceswas a non-political attitude, and a retreat into what Thomas Mann onceaptly called 'machtgeschiitzte Innerlichkeit'.

(2) The constitutional imbalance of the German Reich of 1871. It wasdominated by Prussia, the strongest state and de facto unifier of Germany.Prussia never dissolved in the German Reich like a lump of sugar, but hadconstitutionally a dominant position. The Reich was in fact Prussian Reichof the German nation, as Heinrich von Treitschke once described it." TheGerman Reich was a constitutional mess with a weak centre of governmentand a less than clear constitutional role for the Emperor as its head. TheEmperor not only had to define his role in the constitutional arrangement ofthe Reich, he also had to position himself in the German political culture.12The Lander had a strong position in the Reich, and some of them hadalready developed a national consciousness of their own (Bavaria, Saxony,Hesse).13

(3) A siege mentality. Since the unification of Germany did upset theEuropean balance of power, the Reich could survive only by skilful

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UNDERSTANDING POLITICS AND IDENTITY IN GERMANY 25

diplomacy. The encirclement nightmares led to the proclaimed primacy offoreign policy: the Reich was allegedly in permanent danger, and thisshaped the physiognomy of state and society. Moreover, it kept Europeaninternational relations in agitation. 'Trying to achieve absolute security fortheir own country', Henry Kissinger observed, 'German leaders afterBismarck threatened every other European nation with absolute insecurity,triggering countervailing coalitions nearly automatically."4

(4) Finally, the Reich had no sense of purpose, or, as Klaus Hildebrandphrased it, Germany 'lacked an idea of civilisation which would have beenable to ennoble sheer power and provide a more comprehensiveattraction'.15 As a result, power and the state became a purpose in itself,aiding a restive and feverish industrial modernisation of Germany'seconomy and society that threatened to break open the confines ofBismarck's carefully drafted political co-ordinates of the new Reich. It is inthis context that the young Max Weber remarked in his inaugural lecture inFreiburg in 1895:

We must come to understand that the unification of Germany was ayouthful spree, indulged by the nation in its old age; it would havebetter been if it had never taken place since it would have been acostly extravagance, if it was meant to be the conclusion rather thanthe starting point of German power politics on a global scale.16

It was particularly in the wake of the First World War that Germanintellectuals eagerly tried to address those imbalances and to formulate aGerman mission and identity. It is here, at this juncture in history, that thehistorical experiences of the French Revolution and occupation, the Wars ofLiberation, the historicist interpretation of history, the industrialmodernisation, and the political experiences of the Reich amalgamated intothe 'ideas of 1914'. It is here that the German nation was bestowed amission and a purpose. The primary opponent of the ideas of 1914 were theideas of 1789, of the French Revolution: it was the revolt against the coldrationality of Enlightenment, the contractual basis of state and society, theatomising individualism, the revolt against Zivilisation, against the iron gripof technology and capitalist economy, against the ideology of progress.What was truly German - and thus opposed to those Western values - wasa different idea of Freiheit that emphasised the integration of individualsinto a Gemeinschaft, and the premordial existence of the state. ErnstTroeltsch may have best summarised this:

If one would try to coin a formula for the German liberty, one wouldsay: it is an organised unity of the people based on a dutiful, yetcritical devotion of the individual to the whole, supplemented and

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26 GERMAN POLITICS

corrected by the independence and individuality of a free culturaleducation. And if one would like to simplify such a clumsy formula,bearing in mind the risk of being one-sided and vague, one could say:State socialism and cultured individualism.17

And in this peculiar idea of freedom, embedded in the protective shell of apowerful state, Germany found its mission, elevating the war to a battle ofideologies. Germany was to save the national individualities in the centre ofEurope from the egalitarian universalism of Western political philosophyand the assault of Eastern barbarism. The goal was not German imperialism,but rather, in Troeltsch's words, 'a programme which saves nationalindividualities from either Anglicisation or Russification ... an allied blocwhich would protect the free development of all individual nations againstthe ambitions of monopolistic and huge states', in short, 'the creation of acentral European bloc in which we hope to include all those who areendangered or engulfed, a bloc that would be informed by German political-military, scientific-technical, and ethical and spiritual culture'.'"

The German mission, in mice, was to become protector of culturaldiversity, of a multicultural Mitteleuropa as a project which would give theunique cultures in Mitteleuropa an adequate political form. Some morechauvinist proponents of the ideas of 1914 fell into a more vulgar rhetoric -for example, Werner Sombart, who observed that the war is a battle betweenHandler and Helden, the Handler being the British doing everything forgain, and the heroes being the Germans - a self-perception well establishedsince Richard Wagner's claim that to be German meant to do something forits own sake.19 Conspicuously absent in most of the deliberations - with thenotable exception of an essay by Friedrich Meinecke20 - was the democratictradition of Germany, the tradition of 1848. The ideas of 1914 endorsed acultural nationalism based on a historicist ideology, but never came to termswith liberal democracy. The balance between the universal and theparticular, between cosmopolitanism and the national state was lost and theuniversal heritage of the Enlightenment was abandoned; the claim thatGerman historicism has dissolved the heritage of the Enlightenment winsplausibility when viewed against this background.21

The experience in the trenches only deepened the alienation fromWestern-style democracy; the 'new man, the storm pioneer, the elite ofcentral Europe',22 to quote Ernst Ju'nger, lived on the edge of the presentand was certainly not equipped to deal with the intricacies of democraticprocedures and the blessings of the democratic constitutional state.Nationalism, not the universalism of democratic ideas was still called for.To quote Ernst Jiinger again, from an article on the special right ofnationalism, written in 1927:

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UNDERSTANDING POLITICS AND IDENTITY IN GERMANY 27

Nationalists don't believe in universal truths. We don't believe inuniversal morals. We don't believe in mankind as a collective beingwith a central conscience and a joint law. What we believe in is thatall truth, law, and morality is strictly conditioned by time, space, andblood. We believe in the value of the particular.23

The bitterness and the acrimony of the nationalist opposition against theVersailles Treaty, and against the Republic, has to be interpreted in thecontext of the ideas of 1914. In 1914, Germany set out on a mission froma position of strength. This mission was betrayed and abandoned. Whatwas left of Germany's identity, of its nationalist ideology, its mission? Theexaggerated expectations of 1914 are the backdrop of the drama of theWeimar Republic. Blamed for the frustration of national aspirations,blamed for the Treaty of Versailles, and also blamed for the economiccrises in 1923 and 1929/30, the Republic never had a real chance. Underthe surface of the Republic a devastating concoction of revenge,humiliation, and theories of decline formed a peculiar and potentiallyexplosive mixture.24 The Third Reich not only set out to tear thehumiliation of Versailles to pieces, but was also heir to the ideas of 1914.Goebbels declared that 1933 undid the negative effects of 1789. Indeed, theNational Socialist Revolution was a culmination of the ideas of 1914, andwas thus warmly welcomed not only by the conservative elites, but alsoappealed to large segments of the middle class. Hitler can be seen as acontinuation of certain traditions in German history, but he has also, asThomas Nipperdey has argued, perverted those traditions.25 There were noideas of 1939 that would have matched the ideas of 1914, and the call toarms in 1939 was received with much indifference compared to thenational frenzy of 1914.26 The national idea was already exhausted andperverted, and the Holocaust additionally discredited the foundations uponwhich the national ideology was based.

RENAISSANCE OF THE NATIONAL QUESTIONThe conditions after the Second World War were dramatically differentfrom those after the First World War. Both German states emerging from therubble of the Third Reich were 'rational' states, artificially separated anddestitute of national identity. They were rational states, both claiming thetradition of the Enlightenment as their raison d'etre: the Federal Republicthe liberal democratic variant, and the German Democratic Republic theMarxist variant. Both states owed their very existence to the necessities ofpost-war development, and neither of the two German states initially had ahistorical identity.

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Looking primarily at the Federal Republic, three questions becomesalient. Why did the Federal Republic become a stable state, how did theGermans become democrats and, last but not least, how did the Germanscome to terms with the national question? The first question can beanswered easily. Stability was, first and foremost, imposed by externalconstraints. The Federal Republic was, as some political scientists haveargued, not sovereign, but its freedom of action was constrained in a varietyof ways. Even after the Paris Treaties in 1955, the Western allies did notcompletely give up all means of control. Moreover, security concernsensured that the Federal Republic would closely follow the Western path.Secondly, the framers of the constitution had learned from the failure of theWeimar Republic and almost became obsessed with political stability.Constitutional checks and balances were set up to prevent the predominanceof one branch of the political system. The Constitution was also deliberatelydrafted to form a 'militant democracy' which was to have the means todefend itself against unconstitutional activities. Furthermore, the 1953Election Act introduced the five per cent debarring clause which in effecthelped to narrow down the party system to two and half by the end of the1950s. Thirdly, the economic miracle in the 1950s bought loyalty to thepolitical system. Social market economy became the founding myth of theFederal Republic, lending stability to the political system and remainingpersuasive as a recipe for a quick economic recovery even in the process ofGerman unification in 1990.27 Yet those three factors - the lack ofsovereignty, the design of a 'militant' constitution and the provisionsagainst the fragmentation of the party system, and the success of the socialmarket economy - ensured the stability of the FRG in its early years andprovided the time for a democratic acculturation that the Weimar Republicnever had.

The second issue - how the Germans became democrats - is not soeasily answered. In 1945, there was certainly a feeling of a new beginning,a new start. On the other hand, democracy Western-style was the unlovedoffspring of war and occupation, a product of necessity rather than choice.Heinrich Krone, for example, noted in his diary in 1947: 'We Germans haveno choice but between democracy and a new dictatorship, and both aren'tworth a penny. Let us opt for democracy then, being the better choice,however unsuitable for us. The constitutional form for the German peoplehas yet to be invented.'28 It is not surprising that the democratic institutionsof the Federal Republic did not immediately bring about a democraticpolitical culture. Indeed, the 1950s seemed to verify Thomas Mann's verdictin his Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man 'that the German people will neverbe able to love political democracy simply because they cannot love politicsitself, and that the much decried "authoritarian state" is and remains the one

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that is proper and becoming to the German people, and the one theybasically want'.29 The Adenauer era is seen as notoriously conservative andrestorative, with Adenauer himself a representative of the authoritarian statetradition in Germany; the early years of the Republic in general are seen asa superficially disguised continuance of undemocratic traditions in Germanhistory. This verdict contains more than a modicum of truth. The collapse ofthe Third Reich did not wash away the views and attitudes that hadsupported the Nazi regime. Suppression and denial rather than an opendebate on the crimes of the Nazi past characterised the Adenauer era. Thecontinuity of elites even in high-ranking offices and the processes of white-washing made this attitude painfully obvious.30 A majority of Germansretreated from the vicissitudes of politics into the less disquieting realms ofeconomic reconstruction and spiritual and cultural renewal. The attitudestowards politics were detached and primarily output-oriented.31 Residues ofauthoritarian beliefs and a general political indifference created a peculiarmixture that was certainly a long way away from the 'civic culture' asdefined by American scholars; the subject rather than the citizen was thepredominant model of political behaviour. Still in 1965 Sidney Verba foundthat there was a widely held political apathy and a pragmatic outputorientation towards politics. Stable democratic attitudes had, according toVerba, not taken roots in the FRG.32 In the 'armoured consumer associationFederal Republic', as Rudolf Augstein once gibed,33 the slogan 'Noexperiments' was the ultimate expression for the quest for security andprosperity. Adenauer, the public father of the Bonn Republic, represented allthat was desirable in a private life: calculability, steadiness, prosperity,decency, and the good old times prior to the two wars that seemed sounchallenged by the crises of the twentieth century and modernity ingeneral.

It was only in the 1960s that the Adenauer era became the target ofcriticism in the wake of a push towards further democratisation. Adenauer'sauthoritarian style, the lost chances after the Stunde Null, the idle smugnessand self-satisfaction of the 1950s, the political failure of the fathergeneration in the Third Reich that was repressed in the 1950s, therestorative tendencies of the Federal Republic - all this dominated thepolitical discourse in the 1960s. For some, the Federal Republic evenrepresented a poorly veiled continuation of those forces which had clearedthe path for the Third Reich and had now to be combatted in the name of amilitant anti-Fascism.34 Yet those more extreme reactions to the westernGerman democracy, and through it powerful ramifications in the terroristmovement in the 1970s, were clearly confined to the left-wing fringe of thepolitical spectrum. The critical attitude towards the unpolitical andconservative, even restorative tendencies of the Adenauer era slowly

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percolated into the political mainstream. The democratisation of state andsociety, and the turning away from a more formal understanding ofdemocracy, found its memorable political expression in Willy Brandt'sslogan 'Mehr Demokratie wagen'. Citizens' participation increased andfound channels not only in the established parties, but also in local interestgroups, the new social movements and other forms of non-traditional andunconventional political activities. As a result, the Federal Republic hasdeveloped a civic culture with strong participatory elements.

Last but not least, there was the national question. Politically, the nationstate was buried in 1945. Mentally, it took the western Germans muchlonger to come to terms with the end of the nation state. Indisputably, thepernicious link of nation and 'Machtstaaf was broken, and Germanpoliticians were eager to point out that this heritage of Bismarck had cometo an end in 1945. On the other hand, a strong national sentiment hadsurvived the war almost unscathed.35 The political rhetoric was imbued withnational imagery. The Basic Law, for example, was 'inspired by the resolveto preserve [Germany's] national and political unity' (Preamble), and it waseven mooted in 1949 to add a black canton to the official flag as a constantreminder of the division of Germany36 - the model here was the statues ofStrasbourg and Metz at the Place de la Concorde in Paris which remaineddraped in black from 1871 to 1918. Yet those national sentiments wereexclusively focused on the division of Germany and were not indicative ofa resurgence of old-style nationalism.37 The choice of the national flag andthe national anthem in the Federal Republic were symbolic of a differentunderstanding of nation and nationalism, of the appropriation of the liberaldemocratic tradition, of the civic model of nationalism. The national flagwith its colours black, red and gold emphasises the traditions of Germandemocratic liberalism of the first half of the nineteenth century. Whereas thedebate about the national flag aroused considerable controversy in theWeimar Republic, its introduction went virtually unnoticed in the FederalRepublic.38 The national anthem represents a similar tradition. In 1922, theDeutschlandlied was declared the national anthem, and during the ThirdReich it was played before the Horst-Wessel-Lied. Theodor Heuss, the firstpresident of the Federal Republic, feared that it had been discredited andunsuccessfully tried to introduce a new national anthem. Eventually heconsented (more grudgingly than enthusiastically) to Adenauer's request tokeep the Deutschlandlied. It was adopted as the Federal Republic's nationalanthem not by formal announcement, but by the publication of two lettersexchanged between Heuss and Adenauer.39

Symbols reflect an identity rather than they create one, and identitycertainly was a problem for the Federal Republic. It was to be a temporarypolitical system, pending the unification of all Germans - a Transitorium, as

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Theodor Heuss called it. Thus, FRG politicians had initially been reluctantto commit themselves fully to the new Federal Republic. It was Adenauer'slasting contribution that he prevailed with his argument that theestablishment of the western German state and its integration into the Westwould, in the long run, inevitably lead to unification. It is futile to arguewhether or not Adenauer really believed in this political strategy. But hisdeep mistrust in the fickleness of the Germans, their lack of steadiness, ledhim to anchor the Federal Republic in the political and economicinstitutions of the West, which gave it additional stability and created, overyears and decades, a separate FRG identity which found its expression inthe term 'Bonn Republic'.

The building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 finally put an end to dreams ofreunification in the near future. It was also the building of the Berlin Wallthat prompted a reorientation of Deutschlandpolitik, first formulated byEgon Bahr in his Tutzing speech in 1963. The Wandel durch Anndherungrested on the idea that capitalism and socialism would converge due to theconstraints of modern industrial society. The German question was notabout unification any more, but about a more 'modern' understanding ofpolitical processes. It is worth noting that this more 'modern' understandingof political processes and the idea of the nation coincided not only with ademocratisation of FRG society, but also with the advent of differentconceptual frameworks in the social sciences and the humanities. In FRGhistoriography, in particular the nation state, the national historiographictradition and the historicist perspective were critically re-evaluated. TheFischer controversy of the early 1960s had pointed to questionablecontinuities of the foreign policy of the German Reich and opened the wayfor a critical re-evaluation of the Bismarckian nation state project in general.Moreover, the dominant historicist school was challenged by newapproaches focusing on social and economic history, and a renunciation oftraditional concepts focusing on the nation state and 'high' politics. Thisnew historiographical perspective entailed an acceptance of the division ofGermany and of the notion that the German nation state was irrevocably lostin 1945 - at least for a growing number of historians.40

As controversial as Ostpolitik may have been in the early 1970s, by theend of the decade it was well established. The Christian-liberal coalition of1982 was quick to emphasise continuity. A consensus had emerged acrossthe political spectrum in the FRG. Unification was not about to come, in factit even disappeared from the vocabulary of political rhetoric. For all theyears Helmut Kohl was Chancellor before the dramatic events of 1989, henever used the term Wiedervereinigung. Eberhard Schulz remarked in 1982that the insistence on the unification of Germany into some kind of nationstate can be found in the Federal Republic only in a small and marginal

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group.41 Indeed, it seemed that by the early 1980s the consensus about'nation' was to see it more as vehicle of democratisation in eastern Germanyrather than a prescription for the congruence of ethnic and state boundaries.Helmut Kohl wrote in 1979: 'Liberty and nation are inseparable. Our questand our yearning for the unity of our nation is not merely an empty formula.We have always maintained that liberty and the rule of law have priorityover German unity whenever history has prevented us from realisingboth.'42

With the exception of the older generation of politicians, who still had avivid memory of an existing German nation state, nation and unificationbecame increasingly concepts of yesterday. The Kohl government vaguelyreferred to the unity of the nation, a concept it had inherited from the social-liberal government. But what kind of nation was meant? The historian KarlDietrich Erdmann once described the German situation as being one people,two nations and three states.43 Quite obviously, the unity of the nationexcluded Austria, which had developed an identity of its own. The unity ofthe nation thus was narrowed down to east and west Germany. But if theAustrians had succeeded in building their own identity, how long would ittake for eastern Germans? How long would it take for the western Germansto consider themselves a nation? In other words, how long would it take forthe Germans to internalise the division of Germany?

Since the Federal Republic was an incomplete nation state, and thus arather insufficient focus of political identity, the question had to be answeredwhat was to replace the nation; what would hold society together? For thefirst decade of the FRG's existence this was not a major problem. TheGerman nation was still a frame of reference. For the time being, westernGermans experienced the surrogate identities of model Europeans andemphasised their close relations with the United States, whose democraticculture, its economic prosperity, technological edge and lifestyle theyidealised. Yet again, the 1960s were a critical period. The euphoria ofEuropean integration disappeared in the red tape of European bureaucracy;the innovation and the enthusiasm of the 1950s drowned in a flood ofregulations and incomprehensible common policies, most notoriously in theagricultural sector. The United States, the great idol, tarnished its reputationin the Vietnam War. The younger generation in particular nourished a verycritical attitude towards the United States during the late 1960s and early1970s. The image of the United States was not the image of the defender offreedom and of CARE parcels, the image of the economic and financial aidin the reconstruction of Europe. Now, the United States was seen as self-centred, engaged in a brutal and unjust war in Vietnam, backingundemocratic and authoritarian regimes in Asia, the Near East and SouthAmerica, indeed capable of all kinds of immoral and heinous acts if it served

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the interests of the US or its military industrial complex. This had somemajor repercussions in the late 1970s and early 1980s with the advent of thepeace movement.44 The United States became a villain not to be trusted. TheReagan administration and its bellicose rhetoric in particular arousedsuspicion: the old certainties about who was responsible for the East-Westconflict and who represented the major threat to world peace gave way to adeep mistrust of the policies of both superpowers.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the history of the 1980s is thescintillating variety of concepts the peace movement brought into the debateabout the nation. Some argued that the Germans had forfeited the right to anation state. The division of the German nation was the punishment forcommitting the crimes of the Holocaust. Others argued that Germany in itsdivided status was more compatible with a peaceful European order thanbeing unified.45 Had not even the Christian-Democratic Chancellor Kurt-Georg Kiesinger argued that a unified Germany would have a critical masstoo large for a healthy European order? But the most surprising and lastingimpact of the peace movement was the utilisation of the national questionfor their own ends which caused Pierre Hassner in 1982 to remark with asigh that the German problem was back again.46 The national dimension wasutilised as a lever against the prevalence of the East-West conflict:Germany was seen as an occupied country, as an object in the games of thesuperpowers. Germans eastern and western had stronger bonds than to theirrespective hegemonic power, and dropping out of the East-West conflictwas the solution to the perceived pending danger of nuclear extermination.The national argumentation may have been directed against the East-Westconflict, and the potential for the nuclear annihilation of the Germans. Butit was also indirectly targeted at the Western integration of the FederalRepublic and often had anti-Western undertones.47

The renaissance of the national question was not confined to the peacemovement. Even on the level of government policy, a new self-confidencecharacterised the relations between the Federal Republic and its allies. Thisbecame especially clear in the Deutschlandpolitik of the Kohl government,which tried to shield inter-German relations from the deterioration in therelations between East and West on a global level.48 The underlyingrationale was similar to the argumentation of the peace movement: thediverging interests of Germans in east and west on the one side and theSoviet Union and the United States on the other. Even the ChristianDemocrats, as was demonstrated in the debates about the future Europeansecurity architecture after the 1987 INF Treaty, were not wholly immune tothe temptations of national neutralism.49

The early 1980s also saw a revival of interest in questions of Germanhistory and identity: the Staufer and Preussen exhibitions were unexpected

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successes, and Edgar Reitz's multi-part TV series 'Heimat' becamesuccessful partly because it thematised identity and belonging, and idealisedcommunity in small social circles.50 The German 'Suchbewegungen'51 led toa torrent of publications on German identity, nation, region, Heimat. Theroaming quest for identity and a new form of Gemeinschaft was closelyrelated to the wearing out of the Utopian energies in foreign and domesticaffairs and a normalisation of the German political discourse. But thisphenomenon was not confined to the Federal Republic. In the GDR, theSED started to appropriate German history for its own ends, trying toconstruct a separate and distinct eastern German, that is, a socialist Germanidentity.52 It seems that this twin process in both German states marked thelimits of both as purely rational states, destitute of their own nationalidentity. It should be noted that the renaissance of topics such as nation,identity and Heimat in the Federal Republic lacked any traditionallynationalist undertones. It was a defensive quest for identity, maybe a sign ofthe Federal Republic's attempt to come to terms with its own existence, tofind meaning beyond economic prosperity and constitutional patriotism.

A NEW GERMAN IDENTITY

The unification of Germany in 1990 came at a crucial juncture. In 1990, ageneration of politicians was at the helm who still had memories of theGerman nation state and the tormenting process of the division of Germany.National unity was a part of their political horizon. Twenty or 30 years later,those memories would have faded away from public and political memory.Unification - if it had been an issue at all - would most likely have taken adifferent turn, if it had even happen. The decision to move the seat ofgovernment to Berlin in particular would not have been conceivable. Inother words, the Bonn Republic, which was on the way to self-recognitionin the 1970s and 1980s, would probably have been more reluctant to acceptthe risks of national unification in another two or three decades. Thenational idea, it seems, has carried a late and decisive victory, although theunification of Germany has indeed revealed the scope of mutualestrangement, of differing identities in east and west.

However, nation and state in Germany today are strikingly differentfrom 1914. The social imbalances, one of the major problems of the Empire,were eradicated during and after the Second World War. The FederalRepublic is not burdened by the social cleavages that were so problematicfor both the Empire and the Weimar Republic. In particular, the decline ofthe first sector (the agrarian sector), the disappearance of the easternlandlords, the de-differentiation between city and countryside, the socialintegration of the workers, the quantitative equilibration of Catholics and

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Protestants and the political integration of the middle class have helped tostabilise the Federal Republic and to root it firmly in the political culture ofGermany. Furthermore, the Federal Republic's social structure, having beenthoroughly transformed by the migration in the 1940s and 1950s, is todaybeing further transformed by the influx of foreigners. Germany has departedfrom being ethnically homogeneous to become a multicultural society." Ina multicultural society, it becomes more difficult to organise identity alongthe axis of ethnic nationalism.

Second, the foreign policy tradition of the Federal Republic is decisivelydifferent from that of the Reich after 1871. Unification in 1990 took placeon a contractual basis with the consent of Germany's neighbours. Neitherthe stifling immobility of the German Empire after 1871 nor the primacy offoreign policy seem to characterise German foreign policy today. Theintegration into the political and military institutions of the West and thechanged nature of European international relations in general haveeffectively contained the spectres of Germany's traditional role in the centreof Europe.54 Moreover, the Federal Republic has developed its very ownforeign policy tradition, emphasising a 'civilian' approach to foreignrelations and acting in a multilateral framework rather than unilaterally.55This does not imply that military means are categorically excluded fromGerman foreign policy, as German participation in the war against Serbiamade clear. But Germany participated in a multilateral framework, and theambivalent reactions of the German population indicated a deeply rooteduneasiness about the legitimacy of military means for foreign policy ends.56

Third, following Jtirgen Habermas, the decisive break in 1945 was theFederal Republic's unequivocal commitment to the ideas of the West.57 Theideas of 1914 never were a serious alternative. Even the conservatives afterthe war jettisoned their old attitudes and welcomed Germany's newideological orientation. The broad consensus in German political culturetoday sees the country as an established democracy. This consensus becameparticularly clear in the mid-1980s in the historians' debate. Allparticipants, the polemical attacks aside, operated on the basis of the FederalRepublic's integration into the West and did not attempt to revive a nationalhistoriography that sets Germany apart from the West. Moreover, theFederal Republic's approach to the national question is another case inpoint. The national idea was, in the tradition of the Vormarz, primarily aquestion of democratisation and liberalisation in the east, and only secondlya question of national unification.

It is true that the Bonn Republic operated under conditions very differentfrom those of the new Berlin Republic; in particular the long shadows of1945 were a major point of reference. Whether or not this defining historicalmemory will be replaced by the revolutions of 1989 and what consequences

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this may have is still open to speculation.58 But as important as historicalperspectives may be for the formation of an identity, the nationalism of theyears prior to 1945 has no future. Even if a new historiographic perspectivewould suggest seeing the years between 1945 and 1989 as an unfortunateaberration in Germany's national history, three factors would seem toimpede a re-appropriation of the old nationalist agenda: (a) thetransformation of the Westphalian system, (b) the fate of the nation in thepost-industrial society, and (c) the dynamics of European integration.

The first argument, the transformation of the 'Westphalian system',holds that the modern state, as developed in the seventeenth century, a statedefined by a fixed territory, a sovereign authority setting rules andexercising authority over a clearly defined citizenry - in other words, astructure clearly defining the inside and the outside - is slowly dissolving.One central aspect of this process is, in the words of Susan Strange, that'state authority has leaked away, upwards, sideways and downwards'59 intoa network of supranational, subnational and non-governmentalorganisations and institutions which increasingly provide services, set rulesand regulations and focus loyalties away from the nation state. The nationstate is no longer the single focus of loyalty and identity; the link betweenpolitical community and state power, forged in the nineteenth century, startsto loosen. The clear-cut differentiation between inside and outside fadesaway as the globalisation of markets, communication and migrationprocesses have permeated national boundaries and redefined the notion ofpolitical space: 'Both nation and state have lost coherence, as borders havebecome more permeable, national myths harder to maintain, ethnic diversitymore evident, personal prosperity more dependent on local andtransnational factors than on national protection.'60

This process is closely connected with my second argument, whichdeals with the transition to the post-industrial society. This article arguedearlier that the nation state as it developed in the nineteenth century was thepolitical manifestation of industrial society. Nationalism was the politicalprogramme of the bourgeoisie against the petrified aristocratic anddynastic structure. If the underlying argument is correct that tectonic shiftsin the economic structures have ramifications for the social and politicalstructures, one would expect the nation state to be affected by the economicchanges. This is indeed the case. The economic transformation has erodedthe cleavages of the industrial society and created new ones. Some of themajor features of post-industrial society are an emphasis on services ratherthan production, on knowledge rather than capital. It is an informationsociety in which time and space are compressed. Its organisationalstructure is decentralised, mobile and flexible. It prefers small units overlarge companies, intensive over extensive growth, networks over

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hierarchies, economies of scope over economies of scale, idiolects overgrand narratives and so on.61 This list is certainly incomplete, but itindicates that we are today dealing with a development in modernity thatbears several labels: post-industrialism, post-modernity, reflexivemodernisation, flexible industrial society and the like.62 Crucial for ourcontext seems to be that those tendencies and developments seem to marka departure from the rigidities of the nation state to a more decentralisedpolitical structure and a more diversified social stratification. In otherwords, nationalism in advanced industrial societies is bereft of itstraditional economic base, bereft of a strong supporter who could push iton the political agenda.

The last point deals with European integration. In March 1882, whendelivering his famous address at the Sorbonne about what constitutes anation, Ernest Renan also reminded his audience that nations are not madeforever, that they have a beginning and an end and will probably be replacedby a European confederation.63 Renan added that this was not the rule underwhich the nineteenth century lived, since nations are still necessary as longas no superior authority can guarantee freedom and liberty. Ever since twoworld wars have demonstrated the darker side of the national idea, theoptimism of the nineteenth century has given way to the recognition thatthere is no alternative to the integration of Europe; the German ChancellorKohl has even declared that European integration is a matter of war andpeace in the twenty-first century.64 It is ironic that German unification, thelast triumph of the nation state principle, has given an additional impetus forEuropean integration. The Maastricht Treaty goes to the core of statesovereignty in the traditional sense. The three pillars of the Treaty - theEuropean Community with economic and fiscal union; co-operation indomestic and legal politics; and, last but not least, the projected commonforeign and defence policy - have already transcended our notion of internaland external dimensions of politics, eroded the distinction betweendomestic and international politics and brought about problems ofgovernance unknown to the traditional nation state.65 Moreover, thestructural principle of subsidiarity has empowered subnational units whichsometimes even prevent the nation state from negotiating directly at theEuropean level. As a result, the European Union becomes more and morecharacterised by a system of overlapping authorities and loyalties, amultiple-level system, an almost, to use Hedley Bull's terminology, neo-medieval order.66

The nation state, to summarise the argument, is in the process ofundergoing a major transformation. It will not inevitably disappearaltogether because it still has major functions to fulfil. Ralf Dahrendorf hasreminded us that:

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The pluralistic national state is one of the great achievements ofcivilisation. No other framework exists that can pronounce andguarantee the rights of its citizens. The monopoly of violence by thestate is the precondition of civil rights to be claimed and enforced.Thus, the pluralistic national state is the conditio sine qua non tosafeguard liberty and a value liberals have to defend.67

What seems to be inevitable, however, is a gradual redefinition of the nationstate which is defined less by the nation and more by the rights andentitlements it guarantees to its citizens. This concept of the nation statewould be compatible with the processes of transformation described in thisarticle. The nation thus becomes one dimension of identity amongst others,and the emotionally charged definitions of citizenship emphasisingbelonging will be augmented by a definition of citizenship emphasisingstatus. For Germany, this is certainly a major step as the emotionallycharged debates surrounding the reform of the Citizenship Act in 1999 haveindicated. Germany - as well as most other nations - is still far away fromthe idealist notion of a cosmopolitan citizenship,68 and it may be prudent toask whether or not such a form of citizenship is desirable after all.69 ButGermany seems equally far away from the excesses of nationalism whichhave accompanied German and European history in the first half of thiscentury. Historians another century from now may very well see theunification of 1990 as a last but shallow triumph of the nation state andemphasise the processes that lead beyond it.

NOTES

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Third International Research Colloquium onGerman History, May 1997, at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

1. Peter Brandt and Herbert Ammon (eds.), Die Linke und die nationale Frage. Dokumente zurdeutschen Einheit seit 1945 (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1981); Wolfgang Venohr (ed.), Die deutscheEinheit kommt bestimmt (Bergisch Gladbach: Lbbe, 1982).

2. For example, Hans-Joachim Arndt, Die Besiegten von 1945. Versuch einer Politologie frDeutsche samt Wrdigung der Politikwissenschaft in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland(Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1978); Hans-Dietrich Sander, Der nationale Imperativ.Ideengnge und Werkstcke zur Wiederherstellung Deutschlands (Krefeld: Sinus, 1980);Caspar von Schrenck-Notzing and Armin Mohler (eds.), Deutsche Identitt (Krefeld: Sinus,1982); Bernard Willms, Die deutsche Nation. Theorie, Lage, Zukunft (Kln-Lvenich:Edition Maschke Hohenheim, 1982); idem (ed.), Handbuch zur deutschen Nation, 3 vols.(Tbingen: Hohenrain Verlag, 1986-88); idem, Idealismus und Nation. Zur Rekonstruktiondes politischen Selbstbewutseins der Deutschen (Paderborn: Schningh, 1986); HenningEichberg, Nationale Identitt: Entfremdung und nationale Frage in der Industriegesellschaft(Wien: Langen-Mller, 1978).

3. 'Die Geschichte des deutschen Nationalstaats ist zu Ende, nicht die Geschichte derDeutschen. Was wir als groe Nation uns und der Welt leisten knnen ist die Einsicht in dieWeltsituation heute: da der Nationalstaatsgedanke heute das Unheil Europas und auch alleranderen Kontinente ist. Whrend der Nationalstaatsgedanke die heute bermchtig

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zerstrende Kraft der Erde ist, knnen wir beginnen, ihn an der Wurzel zu durchschauen undaufzuheben.' Karl Jaspers, Freiheit und Wiedervereinigung. ber Aufgaben deutscherPolitik (Mnchen: Piper, 1960), p.53.

4. Karl Dietrich Bracher, 'Das Modewort Identitt und die deutsche Frage', FrankfurterAllgemeine Zeitung, 9 Aug. 1986.

5. Willy Brandt, Erinnerungen (Frankfurt a.M.: Propylen, 1989), p.157.6. 'Die deutsche Frage hat ihren Inhalt verndert. Nicht mehr um die Einheit geht es, sondern

um die Gemeinsamkeit; nicht mehr die Teilung mu berwunden werden, sondern dieTrennung.' Peter Bender, Deutsche Parallelen. Anmerkungen zu einer gemeinsamenGeschichte zweier getrennter Staaten (Berlin: Siedler, 1989), S.189.

7. Elie Kedourie, Nationalism (4th exp. edn., Oxford, UK and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell,1993), p.1.

8. See Theodor Schieder, 'Typologie und Erscheinungsformen des Nationalstaats in Europa', inTheodor Schieder, Nationalismus und Nationalstaat. Studien zum nationalen Problem immodernen Europa, ed. Otto Dann and Hans-Ulrich Wehler (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht, 1992), pp.65-86.

9. Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism. Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge, MA and London:Harvard University Press, 1992), p.277.

10. Thomas Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte 1866-1918: Machtstaat vor der Demokratie(Mnchen: Beck 1992), S.905.

11. Heinrich von Treitschke, Deutsche Geschichte im 19. Jahrhundert (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1909),vol.1, p.vii.

12. See the excellent interpretation by Nicolaus Sombart, Wilhelm II. Sndenbock und Herr derMitte (Berlin: Verlag Volk und Welt, 1996).

13. Werner Conze, Die deutsche Nation. Ergebnis der Geschichte (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht, 1963), p.45

14. Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York et al.: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p.72.15. Klaus Hildebrand, Das vergangene Reich. Deutsche Auenpolitik von Bismarck bis Hitler

(Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1995), p.23.16. 'Wir mssen begreifen, da die Einigung Deutschlands ein Jugendstreich war, den die

Nation auf ihre alten Tage beging und seiner Kostspieligkeit halber besser unterlassen htte,wenn sie der Abschlu und nicht der Ausgangspunkt einer deutschen Weltmachtpolitik seinsollte.' Max Weber, 'Der Nationalstaat und die Volkswirtschaftspolitik', in JohannesWinckelmann (ed.), Gesammelte Politische Schriften (Tbingen: Mohr, 1958), p.23.

17. 'Will man eine Formel fr sie (die deutsche Freiheit, MZ) prgen, so wird man sagenknnen: organisierte Volkseinheit aufgrund einer pflichtmigen und zugleich kritischenHingabe des Einzelnen an das Ganze, ergnzt und berichtigt durch die Selbststndigkeit undIndividualitt der freien geistigen Bildung. Und will man eine so schwerfallige Formelverkrzen, so wird man auf die Gefahr der Einseitigkeit und unzulssigen Allgemeinheit hin,die bei allen solchen Formeln besteht, sagen knnen: Staatssozialismus undBildungsindividualismus.' Ernst Troeltsch, 'Die deutsche Idee von der Freiheit', inDeutscher Geist und Westeuropa (Tbingen: Mohr, 1925), p.103.

18. '[Ein] Programm, da die nationalen Individualitten rettet vor Anglisierung undRussifizierung ... ein verbndeter Machtblock gegen die Monopol- und Riesenstaaten zumSchutze aller individuellen Volksgeister und ihrer freien Entwicklung...., die Bildung einesmitteleuropischen Blockes ... an dem wir hoffen knnen alle Bedrohten und Verschlucktenanzuschlieen, und der unter wesentlichem Einflu der deutschen politisch-militrischen,wissenschaftlich-technischen und ethisch- geistigen Kultur steht.' Troeltsch, 'Die Ideen von1914', pp.54ff.; 52ff.

19. Werner Sombart, Hndler und Helden. Patriotische Besinnungen (Mnchen and Leipzig:Duncker & Humblot, 1915). Wagner's famous definition can be found in his essay 'DeutscheKunst und deutsche Politik', in Richard Wagner, Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen(Steiger, 1976), vol.8. (s.1.), pp.96ff.

20. See Friedrich Meinecke, 'Die deutschen Erhebungen von 1813, 1848, 1870 und 1914', inEberhard Kessel (ed.), Brandenburg, Preuen, Deutschland. Kleine Schriften zur Geschichteund Politik (Stuttgart: F. Koehler Verlag, 1979), pp.509-31.

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21. This is the main thesis of Georg G. Iggers, The German Conception of History. The NationalTradition of Historical Thought from Herder to the Present (Middletown: WesleyanUniversity Press, 1983); and, with a different emphasis, Friedrich Jaeger and Jrn Rsen,Geschichte des Historismus (Mnchen: Beck, 1992).

22. Ernst Jnger, 'Fire', quoted in Anton Kaes, Martin Jay and Edward Dimendberg (eds.), TheWeimar Republic Sourcebook (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of CaliforniaPress, 1994), p.19.

23. 'Wir Nationalisten glauben an keine allgemeinen Wahrheiten. Wir glauben an keineallgemeine Moral. Wir glauben an keine Menschheit als ein Kollektivwesen mit zentralemGewissen und einheitlichem Recht. Wir glauben vielmehr an ein schrfstes Bedingtsein vonWahrheit, Recht und Moral durch Zeit, Raum und Blut. Wir glauben an den Wert desBesonderen.' Ernst Jnger, 'Das Sonderrecht des Nationalismus' Arminius, 4 (1927), quotedfrom Heimo Schwilk (ed.), Ernst Jnger. Leben und Werk in Bildern und Texten (Stuttgart:Klett Cotta, 1988), p.105. For Jnger and the Weimar Republic, see Thomas Nevin, ErnstJnger and Germany: Into the Abyss, 1914-1945 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996),pp.75-114.

24. See Manfred Gangl and Grard Raulet (ed.), Intellektuellendiskurse in der WeimarerRepublik. Zur politischen Kultur einer Gemengelage (Frankfurt a.M: Campus, 1994).

25. Thomas Nipperdey, Nachdenken ber die deutsche Geschichte (Mnchen: Beck, 1986),Ch.11, '1933 und die Kontinuitt der deutschen Geschichte', pp.l95ff.

26. Hans Maier, 'Ideen von 1914 - Ideen von 1939', Vierteljahreshefte fr Zeitgeschichte, 38(1990), pp.524-42.

27. Cf. Dieter Haselbach, '"Social Market Economy" and West German Identity', in MatthiasZimmer (ed.), Germany - Phoenix in Trouble? (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press,1997), pp.157-82.

28. 'Wir Deutschen haben keine andere Wahl als die zwischen der Demokratie oder einer neuenDiktatur, und beide taugen nichts. Entscheiden wir uns also fr die Demokratie, sie ist dasBessere, obwohl wir mit ihr nichts anfangen knnen. Die Staatsform fr die Deutschen muerst noch erfunden werden.' Heinrich Krone, Tagebcher. Band 1, 1945-1961, ed. Hans-OttoKleinmann (Dsseldorf: Droste, 1995), p.55.

29. Thomas Mann, Reflections of a NonpoHtical Man, trans, and intro. Walter D. Morris (NewYork: Frederick Ungar Publ. Co., 1983), pp.16ff.

30. See Norbert Frei, Vergangenheitspolitik. Die Anfnge der Bundesrepublik und die NS-Vergangenheit (Mnchen: Beck, 1996).

31. With ample empirical evidence, Axel Schildt, Moderne Zeiten. Freizeit, Medien und'Zeitgeist' in der Bundesrepublik der 50er Jahre (Hamburg: Christians, 1995), pp.314ff.

32. Sidney Verba, 'Germany: The Remaking of a Political Culture', in Lucian W. Pye and SidneyVerba (eds.), Political Culture and Political Development (Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1965), p.169.

33. Rudolf Augstein, 'Konrad Adenauer und seine Epoche', in Die ra Adenauer. Einsichtenund Ausblicke (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1964), p.82.

34. See Antonia Grunenberg, Antifaschismus - Ein deutscher Mythos (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1993),pp.145ff.

35. See Jrg Gabbe, Parteien und Nation. Zur Rolle des Nationalbewutseins fr die politischeGrundorientierungen der Parteien in der Anfangsphase der Bundesrepublik (Meisenheimam Glan: Hain, 1976).

36. Krone, Tagebcher, p.77.37. See Peter Alter, 'Nationalism and German Politics after 1945', in John Breuilly (ed.), The

State of Germany. The National Idea in the Making, Unmaking and Remaking of a ModernNation-State (London and New York: Longman, 1992), pp.154-76.

38. The national flag is defined in Art. 22 of the German Basic Law.39. See Hans Peter Mensing (ed.), Heuss-Adenauer: Unserem Vaterland zugute. Der

Briefwechsel 1948-1963 (Berlin: Siedler, 1989), S.111-13. Officially, all three stanzas arepart of the national anthem, but only the third stanza is being used at official events. OnGerman national symbols see Hans Hattenhauer, Geschichte der deutschen Nationalsymbole(Kln: Bundesanzeiger-Verlag, 1998).

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40. For the epochs of historiography, see Hans Schleier, 'Epochen der deutschenGeschichtsschreibung seit der Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts', in Wolfgang Kttler, Jrn Rsenand Ernst Schulin (eds.), Geschichtsdiskurs: vol. 1, Grundlagen und Methoden derHistoriographiegeschichte (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1993), pp.133-56. On Germanhistorians, the national idea and unification, see Hans-Peter Schwarz, 'Mit gestopftenTrompeten. Die Wiedervereinigung Deutschlands aus der Sicht westdeutscher Historiker',Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 44 (1993), pp.683-704.

41. Eberhard Schulz, Die deutsche Nation in Europa. Internationale und historischeDimensionen (Bonn: Europa Union Verlag, 1982), p.198.

42. 'Freiheit und Nation sind fr uns untrennbar. Fr uns ist die Forderung, die Sehnsucht nachder Einheit der Nation, nicht irgendeine beliebige abstrakte Formel. Wir sind immer dafreingetreten, da rechtsstaatliche Freiheit auch vor deutscher Einheit gehen mu wannimmer uns die Geschichte die Erlangung beider zugleich versagt.' Helmut Kohl, 'DasWiedervereinigungsgebot als Bestandteil deutscher Politik', Politik und Kultur, 3 (1979),p.23. On another occasion, Kohl was even more explicit: 'Nach meiner festenberzeugung ist das aber keine Lsung (im Sinne der Einheit der Nation) eines Zurcksin den Nationalstaat einer vergangenen Zeit.' Quoted by Karl Lamers, 'Zivilisationskritik,Identittssuche und die Deutschlandpolitik', in Karl Lamers (ed.), Suche nachDeutschland. Nationale Identitt und die Deutschlandpolitik (Bonn: Europa Union Verlag,1983), p.45.

43. Karl Dietrich Erdmann, 'Drei Staaten - zwei Nationen - ein Volk? berlegungen zu einerdeutschen Geschichte seit der Teilung', Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 36(1985), pp.671-83.

44. Harald Mueller and Thomas Risse-Kappen, 'Origins of Estrangement: The Peace Movementand the Changed Image of America in West Germany', International Security, 12, 1 (1987),pp.52-88.

45. See for those different positions Harro Honolka, Schwarzrotgrn. Die Bundesrepublik aufder Suche nach ihrer Identitt (Mnchen: Beck, 1987).

46. Pierre Hassner, 'Was geht in Deutschland vor? Wiederbelebung der deutschen Frage durchFriedensbewegung und alternative Gruppen', Europa Archiv (1982), p.517.

47. See, inter alia, Dan Diner, 'Die "Nationale Frage" in der Friedensbewegung. Ursprnge undTendenzen', in Die neue Friedensbewegung (=Friedensanalysen 16) (Frankfurt a.M.:Suhrkamp, 1982), pp.86-112; Thomas Jger, Europas neue Ordnung. Mitteleuropa alsAlternative? (Mnchen: tuduv, 1990), pp.121ff..

48. See Matthias Zimmer, Nationales Interesse und Staatsrson. Zur Deutschlandpolitik derRegierung Kohl, 1982-1989 (Paderborn: Schningh, 1992).

49. Ibid., pp.194-9.50. In a broader context, cf. Anton Kaes, From Hitler to Heimat: The Return of Film as History

(Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1989), esp. pp.161-92.51. See Karl Rudolf Korte, 'Suchbewegungen: Wo ist der deutsche Standort?' in Werner

Weidenfeld (ed.), Nachdenken ber Deutschland (Kln: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik,1985), pp.19-36; and Karl Rudolf Korte, Der Standort der Deutschen. Akzentverlagerungender deutschen Frage in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland seit den siebziger Jahren (Kln:Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1990).

52. See Eberhard Kuhrt and Henning von Lwis of Menar, Griff nach der deutschen Geschichte.Erbeaneignung und Traditionspflege in der DDR (Paderborn: Schningh, 1988).

53. Cf. Hartmut Berghoff, 'Population Change and its Repercussions on the Social History of theFederal Republic', in Klaus Larres and Panikos Panayi (eds.), The Federal Republic ofGermany since 1949 (London and New York: Longman, 1996), pp.35-73; Dieter Haselbach,'Multicultural Reality and the Problem of German Identity', in Dieter Haselbach (ed.),Multiculturalism in a World of Leaking Boundaries (Mnster: LIT Verlag, 1998), pp.211-28.

54. See Matthias Zimmer, 'Return of the "Mittellage'"? The Discourse of the Centre in GermanForeign Policy', German Politics, 6, 1 (April 1997), pp.23-38.

55. On the concept of a civilian foreign policy, see Hanns W. Maull, 'Zivilmacht BundesrepublikDeutschland. Vierzehn Thesen fr eine neue deutsche Auenpolitik', Europa-Archiv, 47, 10(1992), pp.269-78. On German foreign policy options, see Gunter Hellmann, 'Goodbye

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Bismarck? The Foreign Policy of Contemporary Germany', Mershon International Review,40 (1996), pp. 1-39.

56. Indeed, proponents and opponents of the military strike against Serbia were (almost) evenlydistributed among the major parties. This would almost certainly have been different had theKohl government won the election in 1998. One of the ironies of Germany's involvement inthe war is that pacifism all of a sudden seems to be compatible with air warfare, if waged forthe right reasons; here, the position of some of the Greens converge with those of the moreoutspoken social-democratic critics of NATO policies in the 1980s, most notably ErhardEppler. For some of these arguments see, in particular, Jrgen Habermas, 'Bestialitt undHumanitt. Ein Krieg an der Grenze zwischen Recht und Moral', Die Zeit, 29 April 1999.

57. See Jrgen Habermas, 'Historical Consciousness and Post-Traditional Identity: The FederalRepublic's Orientation to the West', in The New Conservatism. Cultural Criticism and theHistorian's Debate (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989), pp.249-67.

58. See, inter alia, Peter Glotz, 'Deutsche Gefahren', in Die falsche Normalisierung. Dieunmerkliche Verwandlung der Deutschen 1989 bis 1994 (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp,1994),pp.11-29; Jrgen Habermas, '1989 im Schatten von 1945. Zur Normalitt einerknftigen Berliner Republik', in Die Normalitt einer Berliner Republik (Frankfurt a.M.:Suhrkamp, 1995), pp.167-88.

59. Susan Strange, 'The Defective State', Daedalus, 124, 2 (spring 1995), p.56.60. William Wallace, 'Rescue or Retreat? The Nation State in Western Europe, 1945-1993',

Political Studies, 42 (1994), p.75.61. See David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity. An Enquiry in the Origins of Cultural

Change (Cambridge, MA and Oxford: Blackwell, 1990); Krishan Kunmar, FromPostindustrial to Post-Modern Society. New Theories of the Contemporary World (Oxford,UK and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1995).

62. See Ulrich Beck, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London et al.: Sage, 1992); StefanImmerfall, Einfhrung in den europischen Gesellschaftsvergleich (Passau: Rothe, 1995).

63. Ernest Renan, uvres Compltes de Ernest Renan (Paris: Calmann-Lvy, 1947), vol.1,p.905.

64. Presse-und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung (ed.), Speech at the University of Leuven,2 Feb. 1996, Bulletin, 8 Feb 1996, p.130.

65. See Beate Kohler-Koch and Markus Jachtenfuchs, 'Regieren in der Europischen Union -Fragestellungen fr eine interdisziplinre Europaforschung', Politische Vierteljahresschrift,37, 3 (1996), pp.537-56.

66. Hedley Bull, 'The State's Positive Role in World Affairs', Daedalus, 108, 4 (Fall 1979),p.112.

67. 'Der heterogene Nationalstaat ist eine der groen Errungenschaften der Zivilisation. Bisherist kein anderer Rahmen gezimmert worden, in dem die Rechte aller Brger verfat, alsoformuliert und garantiert werden knnen. Das nationalstaatliche Gewaltmonopol istVoraussetzung der Geltung, also der Einklagbarkeit und Erzwingung von Brgerrechten.Insofern ist der heterogene Nationalstaat Bedingung der Mglichkeit der gesicherten Freiheitund ein Gut, das Liberale verteidigen mssen.' Ralf Dahrendorf, 'Die Zukunft desNationalstaates', Merkur, 48, 9/10 (Sept./Oct. 1994), p.751.

68. See, in particular, Andrew Linklater, The Transformation of Political Community. EthicalFoundations of the Post-Westphalian Era (Columbia, SC: University of South CarolinaPress, 1998), ch.6.

69. On the limits of such an understanding of citizenship, see Friedrich Kratochwil, 'Citizenship:On the Border of Order', Alternatives, 19 (1994), pp.485-506.

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