Anne Applebaum: The End of Germany's War Guilt
[Anne Applebaum is a columnist for the Washington Post.]
...[T]he Germans have been paying for European unity -- not just the currency but also the farming subsidies, assistance to poorer regions, highways in Spain and Ireland, and so on -- for decades without much complaint. In Warsaw, some children's playgrounds display signs declaring that they have been "built with European money," most of which presumably comes from German taxpayers. So why are German taxpayers suddenly complaining about the Greeks?
The obvious answer has to do with that poor timing: Germany is still effectively in recession, unemployment is relatively high and the new ruling coalition has sworn to curtail spending. In other words, for the first time in a long time Germans are feeling a direct pinch on their incomes, their pensions and state institutions, including schools. If they don't feel like bailing out other people at this moment in the economic cycle -- particularly people who enjoy an earlier retirement age -- no one can blame them.
The less obvious answer is related to those comments about Nazis. For the driving force behind the creation of the European Union in the 1950s was Germany's guilt about World War II: Although other countries had different motives, the whole point of European economic and political unity, from the German perspective, was to drown the nation and its singular history in something larger and more palatable.
Along the way, Europe acquired other reasons for existence: The euro -- the continental currency that has been rendered wobbly by Greece's national debt -- was created to help the single European market compete with the United States. But political feelings run deeper than economic needs, and without that fundamental German urge to sacrifice national sovereignty, the whole thing will fall apart.
Which is why this wave of German indignation over the Greek bailout is so important: After all, Germany is now run by a generation with no personal memories of the war. Germany's historical debate is now focused on the fate of Germans who suffered from wartime bombing and postwar deportation, not on the fate of Germany's victims -- in Greece or anywhere else. Sooner or later, Germans will collectively decide that enough sacrifices have been made and that the debt to Europe has been paid. Thanks to the ungrateful Greeks, with their island villas and large pensions, that day may arrive more quickly than we originally thought.
Read entire article at WaPo
...[T]he Germans have been paying for European unity -- not just the currency but also the farming subsidies, assistance to poorer regions, highways in Spain and Ireland, and so on -- for decades without much complaint. In Warsaw, some children's playgrounds display signs declaring that they have been "built with European money," most of which presumably comes from German taxpayers. So why are German taxpayers suddenly complaining about the Greeks?
The obvious answer has to do with that poor timing: Germany is still effectively in recession, unemployment is relatively high and the new ruling coalition has sworn to curtail spending. In other words, for the first time in a long time Germans are feeling a direct pinch on their incomes, their pensions and state institutions, including schools. If they don't feel like bailing out other people at this moment in the economic cycle -- particularly people who enjoy an earlier retirement age -- no one can blame them.
The less obvious answer is related to those comments about Nazis. For the driving force behind the creation of the European Union in the 1950s was Germany's guilt about World War II: Although other countries had different motives, the whole point of European economic and political unity, from the German perspective, was to drown the nation and its singular history in something larger and more palatable.
Along the way, Europe acquired other reasons for existence: The euro -- the continental currency that has been rendered wobbly by Greece's national debt -- was created to help the single European market compete with the United States. But political feelings run deeper than economic needs, and without that fundamental German urge to sacrifice national sovereignty, the whole thing will fall apart.
Which is why this wave of German indignation over the Greek bailout is so important: After all, Germany is now run by a generation with no personal memories of the war. Germany's historical debate is now focused on the fate of Germans who suffered from wartime bombing and postwar deportation, not on the fate of Germany's victims -- in Greece or anywhere else. Sooner or later, Germans will collectively decide that enough sacrifices have been made and that the debt to Europe has been paid. Thanks to the ungrateful Greeks, with their island villas and large pensions, that day may arrive more quickly than we originally thought.