National Identity In Germany Research Articles

From the national state to the rational state and back? An exercise in understanding politics and identity in Germany in the twentieth century

The end of the East‐West conflict and the unification of Germany in 1990 have dramatically altered the geopolitical shape of Europe. Speculations abound, in particular as regards Germany: have the spectres of German nationalism been banished for good? Is the new Berlin Republic different from the Bonn Republic? This article traces the national idea in Germany since the early nineteenth century and argues that the Bonn years have been crucial in the development of a civic culture which transcends the concept of a nation dominant in Germany from 1871 to 1945. Rather than marking a return of traditional nationalist concepts, the unification of Germany may well open the way for a lasting reorientation towards a civic concept of national identity in Germany.

The Provocation of His Images

once asked Heiner Miiller what he thought about when he wrote his plays. He answered, as always, very softly, almost shyly: I don't think about anything. At the moment when start to write, thinking is over. am simply looking for a black space. In an interview published later he continued in a similar vein. I don't like detailed concepts. don't want to know the plot before find it. never look for a plot. find it, before look for it. That's what like about writing. Its a risk, an adventure, an experience. When am finished can think about it, but that's quite another thing altogether.2 In the beginning was not the word. What has characterized a certain genre of critical writing about Miller both before and after his death is an unwillingness to struggle with his images; a tendency as well to remain fixated exclusively on his offhand public sound bites sometimes in order to nail him ideologically. The extraordinary obituary in the Economist unmasks its own inability or even desire to comprehend MUller's difficult texts: Even those who never entered a theater felt they knew the man from his public insults. 'The only national identity in Germany is the D-Mark,' is one. 'Ten Germans are more stupid than one,' is another. Neither are MUller's plays much fun to watch. They are black, often violent and complicated.3 Similar, theoretically more pretentious remarks could also be heard coming from some West German critics, who since 1989 have appeared increasingly surprised and even angered by the fact that the

L'Allemagne dans les relations Est-Ouest

The crux of the German problem lies in the contrast between the particularly changing and indefinite character of Germany's national identity and the particularly rigid constraints imposed by its geopolitical situation. These constraints have found their most brutal expression in the division of Germany in the wake of World War II, as a consequence of the division between East and West. With the decline of the Cold War, at least in its classic form, the new problem is that of the three-level congruence or discrepancy between the two Germanies, the two Europes and the two Superpowers. Whether these relations are parallel or divergent, the differentiation may lead to a restructuring of European security.