90
PARTISAN REVIEW
are utterances of old German nationalism, aggressive fringe-group
attitudes from the left. How important and influential they are
remains to be seen.
On a serious political level, the idea of a German nation
received numerous impulses
in
the course of
Ostpolitik.
Three years
ago, Helmut Schmidt mentioned the possibility that one day two
German states might exist under" one roof, in one house," a meta–
phor the chancellor grew fond of.
If
this implied the notion of a polit–
ical confederation between East and West Germany, it was well hid–
den.
It
was clear, however, that the idea of the "roof" was but an
architectural symbol of the "nation." According to Horst Ehmke,
the leading intellectual of the SPD, there is a dominant self–
understanding of East and West Germans that" despite the partition
there is a German nation." A look at the map clearly shows that
Ehmke does not share the enlightened notion of nationhood; it was
Rousseau, after all, who claimed that only sovereignty turned
people into a nation. Nationalism as a doctrine implies that the only
legitimate political order rests on the demands of nationhood,
demands that call for the immersion of individuals, families, groups,
and classes in a larger national identity-an identity traditionally
connected to a territorial state (not
two
states).
The troublesome fact that there are two Germanies-trouble–
some to those politicians who, like the new chancellor, Helmut Kohl,
adhere to the concept of
one
nation-has complicated the discussion
about German national identity. Gunter Gaus, Bonn's "ambassa–
dor" to East Berlin for many years, thinks that many Germans have
simply turned East Germany into a metaphor for communism:
"Faced with the alternative 'ideology or nation', most of us opted
for 'ideology'. "
It
is time, however, he claims, that Bonn conduct
politics under "German priorities. And it may be unpleasant," he
recently wrote in
Die Zeit,
"to realize that we've got to solve our
mutual problems with the German Democratic Republic . Detours
via the Big Brothers are usually more expensive." The cryptic
meaning of Gaus's national theorizing is simple. During his tenure
in East Berlin he had discovered many remnants of German "iden–
tity." His hope for a future, semiautonomous intra-German policy
seems to rest on a mutual feeling of national
Deutschtum
that shall
carry the day over "ideology," i.e., anticommunism.
Egon Bahr was the architect of
Ostpolitik
while counselor to
Chancellor Willy Brandt. He agrees with Gunter Gaus. And
