LEON BOTSTEIN
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slogan, the same hostility and destructive ambition of rightist German
counterparts from the 1920s and 1930s.
The responses of the Bonn government to this terrorism, the object
of international liberal concern, are, in contrast, directly in the shadow
of a German past, and reflect an historically conscious desire to avoid
the mistakes of the Weimar Republic, the only democratic antecedent
to West Germany. The Weimar Republic was undermined by terrorism
from the very start. The right wing
Freikorps
(Free Corps) engaged in
terrorism in the early twenties. Two key radical figures, Rosa Luxem–
bourg and Karl Liebknecht, were assassinated, as were two prominent
essentially centrist politicians identified with the Weimar Republic,
Matthias Erzberger and Walter Rathenau. One of the common explan–
ations for the chaos and disintegration of the Republic is that the
terrorists, primarily from the right, were treated too leniently and were
tacitly, if not openly, supported by judges and political parties. The
toleration of anti-republican terrorism became a respectable means of
opposing the Republic among non-terrorists. The absence of law, of
respect for the legal structures of the Weimar democracy, and the
failure
to
engage in just and firm applications of the law are considered
causes for the collapse of that democratic initiative. Curiously, the
assassins of Rathenau were similar to the Baader-Meinhof members in
their obses ion with the act of terror rather than its end.
In any event, the contemporary official German reaction can be
understood as a replay in which today's officials are systematically
avoiding the errors of a first run-through. Law will be enforced.
Terrorism will be decisively dealt with. The instruments of force will
be used to protect the legal structure and stability of West Germany. As
the Minister of Justice Hans Jochen Vogel said on his trip to the
United States, right after the Mogadishu rescue, "The Federal Republic
is so stable that it can withstand all assaults; and so long as a nation
based on law remains-one that energetically takes action when it is
necessary to do so without deviating one iota from its democratic
principles-then the nation is not in any danger."
This posture toward the future of democracy in Germany, one
which is defensive as a result of the interpretation of the past, one
which is determined to avoid past errors, despite foreign criticism and
concern, i one which seeks to break the pattern of twentieth-century
German history. Ironically, the terrori ts, who have not been regarded
as throwbacks, appear obli vious to the reality and symbolism of this
very same past. The disregard of many foreign observers for the
