A new germany?

New Left Review

Volumn , Issue 57, 2009, Pages 5-40

  Anderson, Perry ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 67650045920     PISSN: 00286060     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (57)

1. The immediate background to Lafontaine's exit lay in a violent, national and international, press campaign against him: Joachim Hoell, Oskar Lafontaine. Provokation und Politik. Eine Biographie, Braunschweig 2004, pp. 197-205.
2. For financial and political details of Kohl's malfeasance, see Edgar Wolfrum, Die geglückte Demokratie, Stuttgart 2006, pp. 477-8.
3. While traditional contrasts in former West Germany between an SPD North and CDU-CSU South were accentuated, the principal novelty of the vote was its gender distribution, women for the first time favouring the SPD over the CDU-CSU by virtually the same margin-some 4 per cent-as men preferred Christian to Social Democrats. For the data, see Dieter Roth, 'A Last-Minute Success of the Red-Green Coalition', German Politics and Society, vol. 21, no. 1, Spring 2003, pp. 49-50.
4. The standard view, expressed as an incontrovertible-foreign and domestic- consensus, could be found in the Economist: 'Most analysts readily agree on what is wrong with the German economy. First and foremost, the labour market is far too sticky. Second, taxes and social-security contributions are too high and profits too low. Third, and not unconnected, social security payments, pensions and healthcare arrangements are too generous. And fourth, there is far too much red tape'. See 'A Survey of Germany', 5 December 2002, p. 10.
5. 'The beguiling path of non-reform', Economist, 22 December 2007.
6. For Schröder's sense of the priorities of a statesman, see the self-portrait in his mistitled Entscheidungen, Hamburg 2006: 'For me an electoral campaign is the most interesting time in the life of a politician. I have taken part in countless campaigns, spoken in hundreds of town squares, shaken thousands of hands, given innumerable autographs. Certainly doing and shaping politics, reaching decisions, is the central task of a politician, his duty, so to speak. But for me the elixir is the electoral campaign, the direct encounter with voters, the competition and struggle for votes, the exchange of argument. Technocrats can also make decisions, journalists can also be know-alls; but politicians alone can and should conduct electoral campaigns': p. 496.
7. By 2003-04, those who identified themselves with the East still far outnumbered those who did so with Germany as a whole: Katja Neller, 'Getrennt vereint? Ost- West-Identitäten, Stereotypen und Fremdheitsgefühle nach 15 Jahren deutscher Einheif, in Jürgen Falter et al., Sind wir ein Volk? Ost- und Westdeutschland im Vergleeich, Munich 2006, pp. 23-5.
8. For some comparative observations on the outcome of unification in the ex-DDR, see Claus OfFe, Varieties of Transition. The East European and East German Experience, Cambridge, MA 1997, pp. 148-58.
9. See International Herald Tribune, 'In Eastern Germany, an exodus of young women', 9 November 2007. Demographically, Germany as a whole has one of the lowest rates of reproduction in the world. In the 2009 Federal elections, voters over the age of 50 will be as large a bloc as all other age-groups combined.
10. As successor organization to the DDR's ruling SED, the pds was often dismissed in the early years after unification as simply the party of'Ostalgia', dependent on the ageing functionaries and accomplices of a police state. In fact, more than any other post-Communist party in Eastern Europe, it succeeded in recasting itself as a lively radical movement.
11. For the emergence of Die Linke, see Dan Hough, Michael Koss and Jonathan Olsen, The Left Party in Contemporary German Politics, Basingstoke 2007, pp. 134-53, a study also covering the evolution of the PDS under the Red-Green coalition.
12. See, respectively, David Conradt, "The Tipping Point: the 2005 Election and the De-Consolidation of the German Party System?', German Politics and Society, vol. 24, no. 1, Spring 2006, p. 13;
13. Hermann Schmitt and Andreas Wüst, 'The Extraordinary Bundestag Election of 2005', German Politics and Society, vol. 24, no. 1, Spring 2006, p. 34.
14. For the data, see Table 1 in Oskar Niedermeyer, 'Parteimitglieder in Deutschland: Version 2008', Arbeitshefie aus dem Otto-Stammer-Zentrum, 13, Berlin 2008.
15. For a lucid analysis of the systemic obstacles to the taking of radical measures by any German government to date, and a pessimistic forecast for the Grand Coalition, see Wolfgang Merkel, 'Durchregieren? Reformblockaden und Reformchancen in Deutschland', in Jürgen Kocka, ed., Zukunftsfä higkeit Deutschlands, Berlin 2007, pp. 27-45.
16. In the words of a satisfied historian: 'Joschka Fischer embodies the integrative achievement of Federal Germany's successful democracy: beginning as a rebellious streetfighter, he rose through various posts to the summit of the Foreign Office, where he won respect beyond partisan frontiers. Fischer marched so long through the institutions that he became an institution himself: Wolfram, Die geglückte Demokratie, p. 479.
17. For a more astringent portrait, see Michael Schwelien, Joschka Fischer. Eine Karriere, Hamburg 2000. Schwelien is a writer for Die Zeit who spotted in advance the likely successor to Fischer in his favourite, the 'eel-smooth' Cem Özdemir, current Green chairman: pp. 62, 65-6.
18. For vigorous raising of this alarm, see Hans-Ulrich Welder's intervention, 'Wird Berlin doch noch Weimar?', Die Zeit, 5 July 2007.
19. "The Coining Powers: How German Companies are Being Bound to the Interests of Foreign Investors', Financial Times, 1 April 2005. Lower down, the Mittelstand remains traditionally patriarchal, with 94 per cent of all German companies familycontrolled, some of them large concerns: 'Legacies on the Line', Financial Times, 9 December 2008.
20. 'Why Germany is Again the Engine of Europe', Financial Times, 29 March 2007.
21. Rainer Hank, 'Angekommen im Globalen Kapitalismus. Die Manager der Berliner Republik', Merkur, 689-690, September-October 2006, p. 909.
22. 'Berlin to Boost Share Ownership', Financial Times, 28 August 2008; and 'Politicians Focus on Filling the Pockets of the Populace', Financial Times, 29 September 2008.
23. For a panorama of aristocratic influence before the war, see Christopher Clark, London Review of Books, 9 April 2009.
24. In the summer of 2007, nearly three-quarters of those polled thought the government was doing too little for social justice, 68 per cent wanted to see a minimum wage enacted, and 82 per cent a return to retirement at the age of sixty-five: Thomas Schmidt, 'Demoskopie und Antipolitik', Merkur 709, June 2008, p. 532.
25. For a pungent version of this complaint from the chief editor of Die Zeit, see Josef Joffe, 'Was fehlt?', Merkur 689-690, September-October 2006.
26. Wolfgang Lepenies, The Seduction of Culture in German History, Princeton 2006, p. 128.
27. Schmitf s juridical influence is documented in Dirk van Laak, Gespräche in der Sicherheit des Schweigens: Carl Schmitt in der politischen Geistesgeschichte der fühen Bundesrepuhlik, Berlin 1993; and his wider intellectual impact in Jan-Werner Müller, A Dangerous Mind: Carl Schmitt in Post-War European Thought, New Haven 2003, pp. 76ff, which, as its title indicates, extends beyond the German field itself.
28. Habermas: Eine Art Schadensabwicklung, Munich 1987; Wehlen Entsorgung der deutschen Vergangenheit?, Munich 1988.
29. Within a year of the Historikerstreit, there had appeared sociologist Claus Leggewie's knockabout tour through what he took to be the emergent forms of a new conservatism, Der Geist steht rechts. Ausflüge in die Denkfabriken der Wende, Berlin 1987.
30. In this constellation, the most significant figure was Armin Mohler, secretary to Jünger and friend of Schmitt, famous as the author of Die konservative Revolution in Deutschland, 1918-1932: Grundriss ihrer Weltanschauungen, which had apeared in 1950, on whom see pp. 187-211.
31. 'Kann keine Trauer sein', Merkur 367, December 1978, p. 1180:
32. Paeschke took the title of this beautiful farewell to the journal he had edited from Gottfried Benn's last poem, written a few weeks before his death, published in Merkur.
33. 'Vorbemerkung", in Merkur. Gesamtregister für die Jahrgänge I-XXXII, 1947-1978, Stuttgart 1986, p. x.
34. The phrase comes from Burckhardt.
35. 'Die Missverstandene Rebellion', Merkur 238, January 1968.
36. 'Surrealismus und Terror", Merkur 258, October 1969.
37. 'Die ausverkauften Ideen', Merkur 365, October 1978.
38. 'Der gefahrliche Augenblick", Merkur 358, March 1978; themes developed in Plötzlichkeit: zum Augenblick des ästhetischen Scheins, Frankfurt 1981, of which there is an English translation, Suddenness: on the Moment of Aesthetic Appearance, New York 1994.
39. 'Die Asthetik des Staates', Merkur 423, January 1984.
40. 'Die Unschuld an die Machf, Merkur 425, March 1984; Merkur 427, May 1984; Merkur 431, January 1985.
41. 'Provinzialismus', Merkur 501, December 1990;
42. Merkur 504, March 1991;
43. Merkur 505, April 1991;
44. Merkur 507, June 1991;
45. Merkur 509, August 1991;
46. Merkur 512, November 1991.
47. 'Asthetik und Politik sowie einige damit zusammenhängende Fragen', Merkur 451-452, September-October 1986.
48. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 13 January 1990; for an English version of this text, see New German Critique, no. 52, Winter 1991. Its translator, Stephen Brockmann, would later describe Bohrer's arguments as 'a foundational discourse for the triumphal conservatism that emerged on the German right in the wake of reunification'. For this judgement, see his Literature and German Reunification, Cambridge 1999. P. 57.
49. 'Die Asthetik des Staates revisited', Merkur 689-690, September-October 2006. The title of the special number alludes, of course, ironically to the official daily of the former DDR.
50. For a mocking tour of the fixtures and fittings of the new Bundestag, and of the government district at large, see Gustav Seibf s deadly squib, 'Post aus Ozeanien', Merkur 689-690.
51. 'Was heisst unabhangig denken?', Merkur 699, July 2007, p. 574.
52. 'Acht Szenen Achtundsechzig', Merkur 708, May 2008, p. 419.
53. 'Hans Paeschke und der Merkur. Erinnerung und Gegenwart', Merkur 510-511, September-October 1991.
54. For a penetrating critique of his major recent work, Imperien, which came out in 2005, see Benno Teschke, 'Empires by Analogy", NLR 40, July-August 2006.
55. Munkler, 'Die Selbstbehauptung Europas. Fabelhafte Überlegungen', Merkur 649, May 2003.
56. Münkler, 'Die selbstbewusste Mittelmacht. Aussenpolitik im souveränen Staat', Merkur 689-690, September-October 2006.
57. Münkler, 'Heroische und postheroische Gesellschaften', Merkur 700, August- September 2007.