HOW CAN GERMANY DEFUSE ITS NEIGHBORS' FEARS?
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tion and the ahistorical comparisons to the Nazi regime are both ludi–
crous and counter-productive. The anti-fascist myth left its imprint on
collective memories. At the same time, precisely because of its radicalism,
the successes of the Party of Democratic Socialism tend to change the
main features of the post-World War II West German political culture.
For the first time a strong party of leftist, neo-Marxist persuasion has
emerged and is capable of challenging the centrist consensus.
The future of a stable and democratically reliable Germany is linked
to its ability to incorporate the idealistic ethos of the revolutionary fer–
vor of 1989, the redemptive mythology of the anti-Leviathan struggle of
the genuine human rights and peace movements. Forgetting them, aban–
doning the sense of solidarity that had emerged at that time, is to deny
East Germans the right to be proud of their short-lived but nevertheless
noble and historically effective moments of revolt. When all is said and
done, one has to admit that it was not only Western pressure, but also
the moral revolution of poets, students, priests, conscientious objectors,
balladeers, and actors that dispelled the political legend and the constitu–
tional fiction called the GDR. Ignoring or discarding this legacy as
quixotic cannot but deepen a certain anger among its citizens. For they
need some moment of the past of which to be proud. No culture can
be based on prolonged and unmitigated feelings of shame and blame.
Thus, the challenge is to establish a culture of guilt and civic
responsibility by admitting that East Germans have their right to memory
as well. Between total forgetfulness and rabid vengeance (what Bruce
Ackerman calls "endless rounds of mutual recriminations"), there
IS
always the road of reflexive remembrance and constructive repentance.
Ljiljana Smajlovic:
After listening to Vladimir talk about the Balkan
burden of the GDR, it seems a minor undertaking to talk about Yu–
goslavia and Germany.
A year before the Berlin Wall came down, Chancellor Helmut Kohl
routinely referred to the stability of former Yugoslavia as one of his gov–
ernment's cherished goals and "a vital condition of preserving the status
of Europe." Back then, three million German tourists visited Yugoslavia
every year. Approximately the same number of Yugoslavs traveled yearly
to Germany to shop, do business, or visit guestworker relatives. Germany
was Yugoslavia's chief trading partner. German and Yugoslav foreign
ministers routinely met twice a year ,lin informal settings, preferably
mountain and sea resorts, issuing form'al communiques that invariably
praised the two countries' friendly relations and mutual understanding.
World War II was but a distant bad memory. The deutschmark had
undisputed primacy on the Yugoslav market.
In
Yugoslavia, everyone
