German Spectator is a regular survey of German mainstream media coverage of politics, religion and society, as well as of foreign policy, especially toward Europe and the United States.
 
Georgian Crisis Spurs German Identity Crisis
 
The Russian invasion of Georgia has opened yet another chapter in Germany’s decades-long self-identity crisis. German media are chock-full of armchair analyses that ponder whether Germany’s destiny lies with her “natural” partner, the Russian-led East, or with the “unnatural” American-led West…or perhaps somewhere safely in between. Myriad pseudo-introspective commentators are also advising readers on the role Germany could or should or may or may not have in resolving the conflict in Georgia.
 
Although German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been quick to condemn Russia, her efforts to play a meaningful part in resolving the crisis have been hamstrung by the junior partner in her coalition government, the left-wing Social Democrats, who believe that Russian imperialist aggression should be rewarded with brotherly love.
 
Merkel says Germany’s demand that Russia withdraw its troops from Georgia must be “credible.” But Merkel’s own credibility has been systematically undermined by her pro-Russian Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter (Superman) Steinmeier, who, by working single-handedly to save Planet Earth from a “new Cold War,” is also hoping to replace Merkel as chancellor in the general elections set to take place one year from now.
 
According to a new poll commissioned by Germany’s ARD public television, more than half of Germans are worried about a new Cold War between Russia and the West. Another poll, taken before the Russian invasion of Georgia, shows Steinmeier gradually closing the popularity gap with Merkel.
 
Meanwhile, the German military attaché in Moscow has this to say about the Russian bombing of Georgia: “The deployment of air power—despite the regrettable civilian casualties—can be seen as militarily appropriate.” Say what?
 
Some German media outlets have, not surprisingly, also taken sides with Russia. Deutsche Welle, for example, demands: “Stop the Russia Phobia.” Some German octogenarians are blaming democracy-obsessed Americans for provoking the authoritarian-nationalists running Russia.
 
The unspoken sentiment running through much of German commentary on Georgia is one of Schadenfreude that the Russians have finally taught the Americans a lesson about the futility of trying to spread democracy to states that Western European elites deem not to deserve freedom. The Financial Times Deutschland: “America Loses Control.” Die Zeit runs a piece titled: “America’s Weakness.” Der Spiegel says: “The sudden war in the Caucasus [has] dealt a blow to US prestige.”
 
Other German luminaries say (with a straight face) that this would be an ideal moment for Germany to carve out a morally neutral niche for itself as a permanent impartial intermediary between America and Russia. This, the postmodern logic goes, would enable a woefully energy-dependent Germany to finally break free from the inconvenient yoke of those pontificating Americans, who insist on holding Russia accountable for its actions.
 
Beyond the predictable charade of blaming the Americans and/or philosophizing about questions of world order, however, the overwhelming sentiment in Germany about Georgia is one of fatalism, based on the sober realization that Berlin actually has very little influence on what happens beyond its borders.
 
This, in turn, has led German media elites to seek false refuge in the (surprise, surprise) European Union. Many German newspapers are urging the chronically divided member states of the EU to join ranks around a common policy vis-à-vis Russia. In practice, this means that the authoritarians running the EU will be expected to issue demands against the authoritarians running Russia. The center-right Berliner Morgenpost warns: “Europe Must Give Russia A Clear Answer.” Has the EU’s superpower moment finally arrived?
 
And, sure enough, the EU has agreed on a united policy: There will be no EU sanctions against Russia. As the financial daily Handelsblatt reports: “Europe Barks, But Does Not Bite.” According to Der Spiegel: “Europe is Capitulating.” Deutsche Welle admits: “EU’s Options are Limited.”
 
But that has not deterred European federalists: Says the Financial Times Deutschland:
“Europe’s leaders have understood that they must act…but the complicated rules and regulations that govern the interplay of the 27 EU states are an invitation to distraction and quarrel. The war in Georgia shows that Europe urgently needs a president…and it lacks a common foreign minister who can forge a common foreign policy from among 27 national sensitivities. It is not impossible; the governments are ready…the Lisbon Treaty is written. The problem is not them up there, but us here below. We would have had our EU Treaty in January had the majority in Ireland not said ‘no’.” Democracy…it’s just so inconvenient.
 
Meanwhile, Der Spiegel argues that Germany’s number one priority is to keep the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) from being drawn into the conflict. “As things now stand, the crisis has renewed debate on Georgia’s membership. At the NATO summit in April in Bucharest, Merkel and Steinmeier played a major role in preventing Ukraine and the Caucasus country from joining the alliance’s Membership Action Plan (MAP). Now that hostilities have erupted, the Germans are happy to keep as much distance as possible between them and Georgia.”
 
Spiegel continues: “Strong criticism [of the German position] has also emerged from the American election campaign. US presidential candidate John McCain has warned that withholding fast-track membership for Georgia might have been viewed ‘as a green light by Russia for attacks on Georgia.’ Somehow this makes Germany partly responsible for the war in the Caucasus, at least in McCain’s eyes, and that does not bode well for Germany should the Republican be elected president in November. Berlin actually had hoped that it only had to get through the last few months of the Bush administration, and then everything would get better. But, no matter who is president, Germany’s relationship with the US promises to be fraught with tension should America allow itself to be provoked by Russia.” As usual, it’s all America’s fault.
 
But as the crisis draws out, and the full implications of the Russian aggression set in, Merkel is, in fact, moving much closer to the American position. Indeed, she now seems more open to Georgia’s desire to join NATO. After meeting with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili in Tbilisi, Merkel said: “I think that a clear political statement is once again very important in this situation: Georgia is a free and independent country, and every free and independent country can decide together with the members of NATO when and how it joins NATO. In December, there will be an initial assessment of the situation, and we are clearly on track for a NATO membership.”
 
Following Merkel’s comments, Financial Times Deutschland ran an essay titled: “Georgia Belongs in NATO.” Could this be the beginning of a European strategic rethink?
 
Star Wars in Poland
 
German media reaction to news of the agreement to base a US missile defense system in Poland has been strangely muted. The deal, which signifies a major augmentation in the ability of America to project power in Europe, may over time turn out to be far more significant to the future of European security than the crisis in Georgia. All the more puzzling, then, that German commentators have reacted to the news with a kind of fatalistic resignation.
 
The left-leaning Die Tageszeitung says: “Moscow’s military leaders are not really afraid of the US missile defense system. Ten US interceptor missiles stand against thousands of Russian warheads, should it come to that…. As usual, the main point is the respect and recognition of a Russia which still has not come to terms with its loss of superpower status.”
 
Only a few months ago, the same newspaper said: “There are so many unanswered questions, especially as to the purpose of the [missile shield]. Since Iran is obviously not yet capable of atomic weaponry, and the world community wants to prevent them from obtaining such weapons, which missiles is the anti-missile shield going to intercept? What is the nature of the threat? How much will it cost the German taxpayer? Will there be further armament projects?”
 
The leftwing Der Spiegel, in a surprising moment of introspection, admits: “Concerns about possible threats emanating from Putin’s unpredictable empire were never far from the minds of Warsaw politicians. After all, have its EU partners in the West not criminally underestimated this danger and left the countries of Eastern Europe to fend for themselves against the Russian bear time and time again in the past? Brussels did nothing when Russia beat up on the Baltic States with arbitrary trade restrictions, when it launched a full-scale cyber war against Estonia and when it used specious arguments to ban Polish food imports. And that’s not even mentioning the weak support given to the young, wobbly Ukrainian democracy as Russia attempted to strong-arm it.”
 
Only a few months ago, the same magazine said European leaders were “sitting out” the rest of the Bush Administration: “Behind the delaying tactics is the hope that a new US administration under Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton will push the expensive missile defense with less determination than the Republican Bush.”
 
The financial daily Handelsblatt says: “In Eastern Europe, a new discussion about Russia is developing that considers both the domestic and foreign policies being followed in the Kremlin. This mindset does not necessarily mean a new split of the NATO alliance into the ‘old’ US-critical Europeans and the ‘new’ pro-American Europeans. But it does show that the large European countries like Germany and France must show more deference to the Eastern European worldview.”
 
The Financial Times Deutschland says: “Prague and Warsaw are betting that their countries will be strategically more important for the United States—and thus they will enjoy greater protection in the future. All this is happening because of fear of ever-more aggressive Russia. In Western Europe, which did not experience a Soviet invasion and martial law, this fear is often mocked as being outdated. But the recent Russian invasion of Georgia shows that it is a very relevant issue.”
 
One year ago, the same newspaper said: “Myths Burden the Debate About US Missile Defense.” The article called for a “factual” explanation of the anti-missile system.
 
At least the center-left Die Zeit is being consistent. An essay titled “Questionable Security” argues: “That Poland—considering its past history with Russia—lacks the will to structure its priorities in another way (let’s say: European) is understandable. But that the Administration in Washington at this point is pushing a Cold War mood and is further splitting the Alliance partners, can mean only one thing: That the current authorities have not learned from the mistakes of the past.”
 
Or maybe it’s the Germans who have failed to learn from history that appeasement never works.
 
The World Has Earned a New America
 
European media elites love to find Americans who can “confirm” that the United States is indeed as crappy of a country as Europeans say it is. And the editors of Handelsblatt are no different. In what must rank as one of the shoddiest pieces of German journalism in recent times, Katahrina Slodczyk tries to convince her readers that the 120,000 US nationals living in Germany (aka America’s 51st state) are suddenly proud to be American again. And it’s all because of Barack Obama.
 
In a “news” story titled “The New Pride to be American”, Slodczyk interviews one Sue Bergermann, who after divorcing her German husband decides to leave Munich to return to live in her small hometown in Ohio. But she soon discovers that she cannot adapt. So she transfers the blame for her self-imposed self-identity crisis to the man who is to blame for all of the world’s problems: George W Bush.
 
In 2004, Bergermann decides to return to Germany, the last true paradise on earth. She says: “I could not stand America. This president [Bush] has turned my homeland into a developing country. Everything is ailing: Infrastructure, schools, political institutions.” Bergermann is back in Munich because “I was happy to find an alternative to life in America.”
 
Fast-forward to 2008: Bergermann is once again homesick for America, thanks to (surprise, surprise) Barack Obama! “If Barack Obama wins the presidential elections, then sooner or later I will return to the USA,” she asserts.
 
Confirming that Bergermann is not the only American expatriate who shares the correct (ie German) perspective on America, Slodczyk also interviews Jerry Gerber, a New Yorker who has lived in Germany for more than 30 years. He says: “Obama makes us proud of our homeland. We now, once again, have a r reason to love our country.”
 
Slodczyk then writes: “Americans have high expectations for the successor of George W Bush…The United States, the greatest world power of all times, has lost its authority. Bush stands for the war in Iraq, torture at Abu Ghraib, for legal inflection in Guantanamo, for a reckless environmental policy…The new president will have to clean up, repair, rectify. He will have to give the country a new direction—and the rest of the world as well.” To which one might reply: Are there any prerequisite qualifications to being a journalist in Germany? Any why is opinion being peddled as news?
 
The Frankfurter Rundschau takes a similar but slightly different line by publishing a commentary titled “European Americans” which asserts that Republican voters are largely uneducated and therefore “American” and Democratic voters are educated and therefore more “European.” Marcia Pally, a “multicultural studies” professor at New York University says: “McCain’s supporters are older, white and uneducated men. By contrast, Obama’s quasi-European voters are female, but especially young and smart.” She then advises: “If Democrats want to win, they will have to rid themselves of their European appearance.” By which she evidently means they should abandon their snobbish cultural superiority complex. Just for good measure, Pally concludes: “Hillary Clinton is simply the better American.” Ouch!
 
Not to be outdone in the effort to profile “disaffected Americans,” the newsmagazine Focus offers an interview with Michael Franti, a Californian hip hop musician who refuses to wear shoes as a way of expressing his solidarity with poor people (by the way, he is also for peace in the Middle East and in the whole world). Focus asks Franti: “You must certainly be supporting Barack Obama.” Franti responds: “I support ideas….For the rest of the world, Barack embodies a new America—and the rest of the world, as well as the USA, have earned a new America.”
 
Germany Way Too Conservative…for Gay Marriage
 
Brigitte Zypries, Germany’s leftwing justice minister, writes an opinion essay in the San Francisco Chronicle in which she apologizes to California’s gay community for her failure to achieve rights for same-sex partners that are equal to those held by married couples.
 
But she insists she is making big progress. Says Zypries: “A visible sign that the important thing in these deliberations is love is the rainbow flag that flew over the Hamburg City Hall from July 31 to August 3 to commemorate the local gay pride celebration.” That “event” was the result of a political agreement between the parties that form the local government, which is led by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
 
She continues: “The CDU is Germany’s leading conservative party, and its attitude toward creating a legal foundation for registered same-sex partnerships has ranged from reluctance to rejection…. I am committed to attaining complete equality between married couples and registered life partners. But in Germany, the time for this unfortunately has not yet arrived…. In Germany, many conservative people attach every bit as much importance to the remaining legal differences between heterosexual spouses and same-sex partners as conservatives in the United States attach to the exclusive use of the term ‘marriage’ to describe the bond between a man and a woman.” Long live many conservative people!
 
In the effort to score some brownie points with San Francisco’s gays, however, Zypries concedes that Germany is not any more “progressive” than is America. Another pillar of European leftwing dogma goes up in flames.
 
“Ugly German” Seeks “Negro”
 
More news of Germans gone wild while abroad: The German consul general in San Francisco, Rolf Schütte, says a group of German MPs visiting the United States was more concerned about sightseeing and shopping for shoes than about scheduled meetings with American counterparts. And who can blame them? After all, San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities in America.
 
But Schütte’s complaint does not end there. In a report he prepared for the Foreign Ministry, and which was later leaked to the German media, the parliamentary group was due to take a sightseeing trip around San Francisco, when one delegate, Annette Widmann-Mauz, broke her foot. When Schütte provided her with a wheelchair, the MP complained that it was “a chair for the sick with small wheels, the kind you see in old US movies.” Her colleague, Randolph Krüger, chimed in by saying: “We need a negro who can push the wheelchair.” Come again?
 
When asked by Der Spiegel about the incident, Krüger said: “I would not exclude having said that, but if they are going to provide us with such a splendid contraption, they can at least help us out with it.”
 
So much bunk for the idea that Germans are more civilized than Americans. It looks like the “ugly American” faces stiff competition from the “ugly European.”