Don’t Blame Germany July 26, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Actualite, Contemporary, Modern , trackback
Germany has never been a very popular country. But it is fair to say that Germany is perhaps more unpopular in 2015 than at any time since the bush fire memories of the Second World War started to die down in the mid 1950s. In several countries Germany is loathed: top of the list here is Greece and, admittedly at a lesser magnitude, comes France and Italy (albeit for different reasons). Other countries are suspicious of Germany: this is a much longer list and includes Britain, Poland, the Scandinavian countries, and the other Mediterranean states and much of Eastern Europe. In other words pretty much everyone on the Continent… Don’t believe Beach? Then consider this extraordinary list of articles/tweets/comments from the last months comparing Angela Merkel (the Germany PM) with Adolf Hitler or making a connection between Germany and the Nazis. They are from, respectively, Italy, France, the US and Britain.
Italy: For some the parallel between the Germany of Angela Merkel and that of Adolf Hitler will be suspect, but in different times the only thing that changes are the methods: just as the Nazi leader reserved for itself in times of war different treatment from other countries, the Germans today do the same thing with the economy. Per qualcuno il paragone tra la Germania di Angela Merkel e quella di Adolf Hitler sarà forse azzardato, ma in tempi diversi a cambiare è solamente il modo di agire: così come il leader nazista riservava in tempi di guerra trattamenti diversi agli altri Paesi, i tedeschi di oggi fanno lo stesso attraverso l’economia. Giulio Chinappi.
France: Germany wants to annihilate Greece and maker her accept, by threatening her with Grexit, a mortal plan of total submission! The Fourth Reich! L’Allemagne veut écraser la Grèce en lui faisant accepter sous la menace d’un Grexit un plan mortel de soumission totale! Le 4ème Reich! Jean-Luc Mélenchon leader of the neo-Communist left
The US: As the Depression deepened and Germany’s centrist and even social democratic parties continued to insist on a policy of balanced budgets uber alles, increasing numbers of voters abandoned the center for extremist parties in the 1932 election. Soon thereafter, one of those extremist leaders — I think his name was Hitler — became chancellor. Harold Meyerson in Business Insider making a parallel with modern Germany.
The UK: But Merkel undoubtedly stands tried and convicted in the dock of history already. The EU’s high priests of austerity conjure up the words of Charlie Chaplin’s rousing speech at the end of The Great Dictator: Machine Men with machine minds and machine hearts’ [The Great Dictator it will be remembered is Hitler] Owen Jones in the Guardian
These sentences are stupid and untrue: some of them are simply slanderous. Angela Merkel may or may not be a good thing but she is about as far as it is possible to get from Adolf Hitler. Angela doesn’t do piano wires in the basement…
To understand why Germany is being blamed it is necessary to understand ‘the German problem’. Let’s quickly recall the status of Germany in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. There were two difficulties with Germany post unification in 1870. First, as A.J.P.Taylor put it, there were just too many Germans. The Germans outweighed by a considerable margin other European countries in the demographic stakes: and this was the smaller version of Germany, the Kleindeutschland. Second, the Germans have, for much of the last hundred and fifty years, proved better at things than other European countries: fighting, industry, politics… Education and Kultur is likely to blame. You had then a deadly combination: a country with lots of able people. The World Wars were natural outcomes of these demographic and national imbalances. Millions died. But Germany, after 1945, was put through the dry cleaner. Germany in 1960, in fact, was not the same country as Germany in 1930: no other European nation save those under Soviet control had experienced greater changes. Germany has been, in fact, for the last, seventy years, a key power in the western alliance and a force for boredom and good in the world. Can there be a greater compliment?
So why all the absurd accusations and mud-slinging about the Third Reich? Europe has one overriding problem and that is the European project: the idea that the different countries of Europe should sooner or later melt into the Nirvana of European Union, ‘ever closer union’ as the Treaty of Rome has it; and Germany is to blame only in as much as it has been a key player in that process. This was always an arrogant elite-led project that was taken more seriously by politicians than by people. But it became particularly dangerous when in the late eighties these elites began to plan for a single currency. This currency was above all a French project foisted on Germany as the price for German unity. Helmut Kohl did not though need to have his arm twisted too much and Germany and then every other EU country with the honourable exceptions of Denmark, Sweden and the UK fell into line. When the EURO actually became a reality in 2002 there were celebrations everywhere and anyone who dared to protest found things distinctly uncomfortable: it wasn’t safe to even voice concerns at dinner parties (painful memories).
Thirteen years later every economist of standing will admit that the Euro was a mistake and that were it possible to turn back the clock it would not be attempted again. The EURO has divided Europe into two halves, a debting Mediterranean portion and a more disciplined northern section. The EURO has been run, understandably, for the north of Europe, which brings Europe its wealth and, to use the words of one British politician, most of southern Europe is simply in the wrong currency. Beach has lived in Italy for twelve years and he has seen the damage caused by the EURO and the slow disillusionment with the same: every time an Italian speaks well of the lira an angel is born in the heavens…
As the Euro has gone wrong the Germans have become the scapegoats of the situation. But the Germans are merely insisting upon the kind of German fiscal discipline that has led to so much German success and they are right to do so for Germany (and for much of northern Europe). The problem is not Germany but the EURO and as such the guilty parties are all those who supported or who, much worse, continue to support that currency. What is annoying looking at the list above of journalists and politicians is that many of these writers and their publications have or at least until recently been pro-European and pro-Euro in their statements. They are not Nazis, of course, but they were badly wrong, and instead of blaming Germany for their mistakes: they might start thinking about how to wind down this disastrous fiscal experiment.
Yet, the paradox is that almost 80% of Greeks, who have seen their economy badly dented in the last ten years, and most Europeans who already have the Euro want to protect the status quo. The United States and European politicians continue to defend the project: there is even talk of inviting other countries into the currency union something that the likes of Poland (a late arrival) are understandably keen to avoid. The truth is that getting rid of the Euro will not be like ripping off a bandage. It will be like ripping out stitches. It will hurt and economies will suffer. But sooner or later it has to be done. It would be far better to have a disaster in 2015 than a catastrophe in 2025. Yet at the moment, with Greece locked into an eternal entropy, the latter looks more likely than the former and when that moment comes it is important that Europeans remember that it is the currency they supported not Angela Merkel that got them into this God awful mess.
Others on Germany in 2015: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
28 July 2015: KHM to start ‘European countries with histories going back beyond the Middle Ages are too culturally mature to benefit from a single currency or a single constitution, especially the highly populated ones. Eliminating trade barriers, as the Common Market did, was good, but there really is no room for the affluent countries indirectly subsidizing the poorer ones, without an unacceptable loss of cultural identity and national pride. Greece won’t surrender its pride even if it propels them into a serious depression. Unfortunately, you can’t expect to combine apples and oranges into a dish worth eating. However, in the event of a catastrophe such as WWIII, where over half of the European population dies, there would then be sufficient reason for a greater degree of economic and political unity. It seems Napoleon and Hitler weren’t catastrophic enough to change national psychology, but may ultimately be regarded as precursors to the real thing.’
Zenobia writes ‘What you write is wise … and probably true, Beachcomber, though I still think there is life in the Euro project if more flexibility could be imported into it; perhaps using floatable parallel currencies for internal payments in some countries[OK, I’m a simple archaeologist and know nothing of economics]. However, ‘the more disciplined northern sector’ of which you speak, includes The Netherlands — with a government gung-ho for austerity. So we have enjoyed years of stagnation, high unemployment, and ruinous cuts to social and educational programs — all in the name of discipline. And it’s not Germany’s fault but our own stupidity.
LTM ‘The Euro was, and still is, political. Economically, the Euro countries fall into two groups, the economically stronger, who gain a weaker exchange rate that improves export terms; and the economically weaker, who get a stronger exchange rate that weakens export terms, and cheaper borrowing because their acceptance into the Euro Zone was the Seal of Approval, and suggested aid from the other nations if necessary. So by joining the Euro, the weak weakened their export potential while at the same time they succumbed to the temptation of easier borrowing. Blame Germany for the idiotic way the crisis has been handled.’
James H: ‘I read your commentary and couldn’t agree more. There are some terrible times coming for Europe because of the EU project. I think the powers to be know it’ll collapse and what you’re seeing is a pr campaign to dump the blame on the Germans in that eventuality. Taking Greece for the topic. The Greeks forged their own chains of economic servitude with not a peep of dissent while the money came in, now they wake to find themselves in a giant debtors prison of their own making. What do they expect the lendors (the Germans) to do? Well I’m starting to blather. Suffice to say the recent votes in Greece and the domestic political pressure in Germany against the deal are exposing the weaknesses and future of this boondoggle. You know that Italy, Spain, etc are watching intently and will demand similar treatment to Greece. To quote my mother, “The ones in power will spend until there are not two stones upon each other to keep themselves in charge.” A plague upon them!
Thanks all!
Ricardo R, a very old friend of this blog writes in, 31 July 2015, ‘I know we stand on distant points on this one. Albeit, funny enough, I feel empathy what I understand to be your arguments. Should we abandon hope of an united Europe? I would gladly sacrifice a bunch of cultural differences in the name of peace and well being. On the other hand we can argue that’s no possible, the political systems and societies are too different among the different European, heck!, sometimes even regional governments for it to be achieved. Is it a fools dream to have a federal Europe that is able to keep whats good and nice on each place, not becoming a bland and uniform landscape? Time, maybe measured in centuries, will tell. I just hope that we are not at the point of, like Orwell in Spain, to give up fighting and just document for posterity… Which should be taken as an analogy of situation and not an endorsement of political options.’ Thanks Ricardo!
