From defeat to demise: German nationalism at the end of the twentieth century

Abstract

To many the emergence and strong electoral showing of a right-wing Party, the ‘Republikaner’, in the Federal Republic of Germany in the eighties’ and the discovery of xenophobic and antisemitic outbursts in the German Democratic Republic after the fall of the Communist regime came as a shock. Together with the unification emotions which briefly swept both German states’ in 1989/90, it appears that German nationalism is on the rise again. The aggressive German nationalism of the 19th and early 20th century was defeated in 1945. How then should we interpret the reemergence of nationalist groups and slogans in the eighties and nineties? In this paper, I will speak of the demise of German nationalism despite the existence of right-wing parties with rascist political programs. Although nationalist activities in Germany seem to be more conspicuous recently than they have been in the past decades (with the exception of the sixties), they appear to be confined to small segments of the population. The reason for this ‘encapsulation’ is structural, as I will argue; the defensive and antimodern character of contemporary nationalism in Germany inhibits its expansion: nationalism no longer furthers societal modernisation. I will develop my argument out of Ernest Gellner’s theory of nationalism which links nationalism to modernisation (II); I will then distinguish between ‘modem’ and ‘antimodem’ German nationalism (III); and I will demonstrate my hypothesis about the defensive character of contemporary German nationalism by a short analysis of the program and supporters of the most prominent right wing West German party, ‘Die Republikaner’ (The Republicans) (IV). In the final paragraph I will draw some conclusions from the confrontation of the sociological concept of nationalism with the history of German nationalism(V).