FORMER WEST GERMANS AND THEIR PAST
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however vital that was to a reorientation toward liberal democracy can–
not suffice. East Germans will have to shape post-totalitarian politics
themselves. However, after over fifty years of totalitarian rule, the East
German
Lander
need "democratic assistance." But no matter how well–
intentioned such assistance may be, it is unlikely to be very effective, inso–
far as it humiliates and de-legitimates the individuals and organizations
that receive it. It may even create resistance. Now, West German assis–
tance to East Germany is widely perceived as humiliating patronage, be–
cause West Germans dominate in high-ranking positions in administra–
tion, business, politics, and academia.
In the United States, for a hundred years after the North's victory
over the Confederacy, when the North established the rules for the
Union, carpetbaggers determined the reconstruction of the South. One
hundred thirty years later, power now flows to the South: new seats in
Congress come from Texas and Florida; foreign companies invest in
Georgia and the Carolinas; enterprising people move to the sun belt. I
hope that German reunification provides East Germany with equally fa–
vorable conditions to start from scratch toward the resurrection, and
evolution, of social pluralism. Eventually, the new
Lander
will be Eu–
rope's most modern region. I hope that East Germany's reconstruction
will not take as long as that of the American South, and indeed, re–
markable efforts are underway. Still, the resurrection of social pluralism
takes longer than the restoration of a free market. Structurally, the new
Liinder
will be different, at least for a transitional period. The newly
emerging political and ideological pluralism that creates the basis of a
stable democracy will lack the familiar social diversity of the old
Liinder
as well as their post-national moral-cultural system. One example: In
eastern Germany, the new entrepreneurial class, which usually forms the
bedrock of democratic capitalism, is made up of an alarming proportion
of former Communists. Many members of the former political elite have
successfully transformed themselves into business leaders after being kicked
out of the administration, academia, or former state-owned enterprises.
Will a part of this class become a destabilizing factor for democracy?
The West Germans' exit from fascism took the form of
"Europeanization." Psychologically, the abandonment of nationalism,
and of the traditional concept of the nation-state as well, was the West
German way to become Westernized. The formula through which most
West Germans recognized themselves was the term "post-national
democracy," introduced by one of the most well-known German politi–
cal scientists, Karl Dietrich Bracher. Both on the left and on the right,
patriotism in the form of national pride was replaced by "constitutional
