Beyond the National Narrative: Implications of Reunification for Recent German History

Abstract

This essay addresses the interpretative implications of German unification. It first suggests that the explanatory challenge is to trace the precise interaction between the international framework of détente and the internal dynamics of the democratic awakening. It then posits that part of the history of the years 1990–2010 in Germany, sometimes referred to as the ‘Berlin Republic’, can be understood as working out the consequences of unification; but a growing part is also composed of other issues such as globalization, immigration and educational reform. And it finally argues that the resumption of the national narrative is a backward-looking perspective that blocks the recognition of more recent problem areas that cannot be dealt with by telling a success story about the Federal Republic, but require an engagement with issues of postmodern modernity.