CNN Correspondent Returns to a Unified Germany
Reprint from Spring/Summer 1996 SYA Newsletter
by Andrew Holtz DE'73
Andrew Holtz, a medical correspondent with CNN, recently returned to Germany. He was one of twenty American broadcast journalists invited as guests of the RIAS Berlin Kommission. (RIAS, previously Radio In the American Sector and official radio of the U.S. military, has been transformed into a foundation fostering ties between German and U.S. journalists.) During his two-week tour, Andrew had the opportunity to meet political, economic, and media leaders and to hear firsthand accounts of Germany as it stands today, united in the center of Europe.
In October 1995, I visited a Germany that is familiar and yet new. The newness is more than merely the accumulated evolution of two decades since my SYA schooling at the Langenhagen Gymnasium in 1973. Five years after unification, Germany is testing new legs, feeling new strengths and encountering new hazards.
During my SYA year I asked my German host sister what she thought of the Trennung, the separation of her nation. She gave it little thought; it was merely a fact with its origins before her birth and its ultimate end, seemingly the stuff of fantasy.
The facts, and the landscape, physical and political, have changed. It became clear that the initial jubilation at the end of decades of separation has been followed by the sober reality of difficult work. As with the move of the capital from Bonn to Berlin, the concept sparkled with excitement; but deciding who gets the corner office, allocating parking places, and paying to move the furniture are dull necessities.
Discontinuities gape between perceptions of many "Wessies" (Germans from the West) and "Ossies" (those from the East). Common refrains from the West include almost smug satisfaction with unification, along with a bit of griping about the higher taxation required to subsidize the former East. From "Ossies" come refrains that include happiness at the demise of the East German Communist regime, flavored with resentment at the way western "carpetbaggers" have taken control of both business and politics, and wistful remembrance of vanished guarantees of employment and housing.
The problems do not lie only in the East. While western Germans display substantial capitalist achievements, the tour pointed out some cracks in the economic facade. Wages, benefits, and ultimately prices in Germany tower above those in the U.S. and most other nations. Germans earn almost twice as much per hour as their U.S. counterparts. As some of the speakers hinted, the future competitiveness of Germany in the global economy is by no means certain. It would be nice to think workers in other nations would see their wages and benefits rise to German standards, but that would be pointless fantasizing. I can only imagine the political consequences of efforts to limit the social security to which German workers have become accustomed, especially considering the relatively strong political activity of labor unions.
The end of the Cold War allowed unification. It also erased the foundation of German foreign policy. We toured the halls and chambers of the Cecilienhof, still haunted by the ghosts of Stalin, Truman, Churchill and Attlee. Since they met amid the ashes of World War Il, all politics in Europe has been framed by the demarcations established by the wartime allies and post-war adversaries. During the Cold War, the tasks of national leaders were often grim, Armageddon cast its pall; but the choices and direction were clear. Without the stark guiding light of East- West conflict, the foreign policy landscape is gray, trail signs harder to read. In Germany, the commonality of purpose with the U.S. is no longer assumed. Germany must find its own path, while still carrying the legacy of Nazism, the heavy memory of the death camps that embodied the industrialization of genocide. Political debates over participation in NATO’s Bosnia force demonstrated the trepidation with which Germans handle questions of the use of of military power.
We saw no signs of German meekness regarding questions of economic foreign policy. Germany seems quite comfortable leading the way in European trade and currency relations. Indeed, while military policy is tied to a concept of joint operations, there is a palpable sense of the reluctance many Germans feel about ceding any control over monetary matters. One of the hurdles facing enactment of the single European currency is the strong reluctance of Germans to surrender their beloved Deutschemarks.
No longer is Germany a divided front-line state; but like a suddenly sprouting adolescent, Germany is learning to become accustomed to its new size and strength.