HOW CAN WE "RECONCILE" COMMUNIST AND NAZI LEGACIES?
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"constitutional patriotism" is a theoretical concept.
It
comes, I believe,
first from Dolf Sternberger, then from Habermas, but also from Richard
von Weizacker, the last Bundespresident. The term itself represents both
a compromise and a contradiction. It's a compromise between
emotional identification, patriotism, and something very rational - being
bound to your constitution by rational argument.
To Dr. Tamas: Could you elaborate a little more on what you call
German liberalism? We have a Christian Democratic government; a So–
cial Democratic party without a platform; and the Greens, the only in–
novative party in Germany. Where does liberalism come in?
To Dr. Herf: Could you elaborate on the consequences of what you
were reporting about - the dealing of the Communist Party of the
GDR with the Jewishness of its leading members?
Gaspar Tamas: I
used Habermas's concept in loose fashion. I disagree
with his description of these notions, but this leads me to a more impor–
tant disagreement. The intuitive, classical notion of patriotism is not
primarily emotional. Classically, patriotism is considered to be a moral
virtue, namely that citizens would voluntarily perform deeds for their
country, beyond the call of legal duty. That is not emotional but a real–
ization of one's moral duty to one's political community. The idea of
constitutionalism ,and the idea of patriotic civic virtue are not far apart.
So, I don't think that there is a contradiction.
I didn't mean that liberalism as a political philosophy and a powerful
doctrine is especially alive and strong in Germany. I was using the com–
mon political terminology, by calling free countries liberal democracies -
countries with markets, with liberal economic policies, where people are
not arrested in the night and dragged away without a warrant.
In
this
sense, Germany is a perfectly respectable country, although I don't think
German politicians are particularly imaginative. And I don't think that
the Greens or the PDS are very imaginative.
Jefttey Herf: I
will make four points. West German democracy bene–
fited from the division of the country because it eliminated the Com–
munist Party from electoral politics. As a result, the Social Democratic
Party had no opposition to its left and was able to win national elec–
tions. One of my major concerns about a unified Germany is whether
Italy's past is Germany's future . That is, whether the existence of a PDS
plus a Social Democratic Party will make it impossible for the demo–
cratic left, a center-left government, to win a national election, and
whether right-wing or moderate right-wing governments will be perma–
nently in power, leading inevitably to corruption, inefficiency, and an
