The War that Took Place in Germany: Intellectuals and September 11

Abstract

The epigraph seems to border on hyperbole: were the debates in thefall of 2001 really “exclusively” subsumed by domestic politics? ButBassam Tibi, one of the hundreds of experts who made the roundson the endless talk shows and conferences in Germany, may be on tosomething. In a recent book about how the public intellectuals, religiousleaders, and celebrities reacted to the terror attacks of September11th, Der Spiegel essayist Hendryk Broder made a similar point ashe aimed his bittersweet satirical wit at the navel-gazing, self-righteousness,and hypocrisy of Germany’s public intellectuals.2 Broder’sbook is a self-conscious example of that timeless German genre, theStreitschrift, an erudite polemic in the service of both noble edificationand less high-minded settling of scores with one’s intellectualopponents. Although exaggerated, one-sided, and terribly funny,Broder’s analysis of the German public discourse of the fall of 2001does contain some serious arguments that anyone interested in theEuropean perception of America cannot ignore. In this essay, I willsketch the contours of that reaction by focusing first on the kinds ofissues that preoccupied German intellectuals in the wake of theattacks of September 11th; second, I will contrast that reaction to how ordinary Germans and government officials perceived thoseevents; third, I will explore the role that anti-Americanism played inthe intellectual debates of fall 2001; and finally, I will reflect on thesignificance of September 11th for German society in general.