Session Five:
America and the Emerging Europe
David Gress:
The participants will each speak for twenty minutes, and
then we will go straight to questions from the audience. Our first pan–
elist is Dr. Peter Rollberg, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literature at
George Washington University. He is a native of the former East Ger–
many, writes widely on German and Slavic literature and is currently
editing an encyclopedia of post-Soviet literature. He will speak on "The
New Sobriety: Post-Communist Intellectuals Searching for Identity."
The second panelist is Professor Wilfried von Bredow, of the University
of Marburg, who has written on a great variety of issues, among them
the German peace movement, German foreign policy, and German na–
tional interest. He will speak on, "Are Americans Competitors or Allies
of the New Germany?" Finally, our third panelist, Mitchell Ash, is Pro–
fessor of History at the University of Iowa. He has written on gestalt
psychology and its history in America, and was a Fellow of the Institute
of Advanced Study in Berlin in 1990-1991. Now, to Professor Rollberg.
Peter Rollberg :
The overall thep-le of this conference is the question of
whether or not the reunited Germany will be willing and able to playa
constructive role in Europe.
In
focusing only on post-Communist intel–
lectuals, I hope to contribute to the discussion from my own East Ger–
man and Soviet experiences.
The vaguely defined stratum called the German intelligentsia has been
profoundly shaken by the events of the last five years.
In
East Germany, as
in the other former Communist countries, the intelligentsia was used as a
tool of the political system and lent legitimacy and continuity to core
societal values. When the framework of Communist values crumbled,
they became superfluous and replaceable by those who were by definition
better suited for the job - Western intellectuals.
Many intellectuals in the former East Germany, have a self-image
which is shared by many West German observers. Though accurate, this
view turned into a stereotype and left little room for differentiation.
Eventually, the two formerly separated Siamese twins became even more
conscious of their own individual identities, and less aware of others.
Moreover, social repositioning, economic hardship, and feelings of moral
humiliation created an atmosphere of never-ending insult, and a collec–
tive denial of responsibility for what had happened in the GDR and
what now is going on in the new
Liinder.
Intellectuals are expressing
frustration over the outcome of the
Wende .
Each side holds naive notions of the other's history before 1989. This
