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erosion of faith in democratic institutions. I think that is a serious prob–
lem for unified Germany which we haven't talked about.
Second, in a very horrible and ironic manner, the destruction of the
German Jewish community also facilitated the democratization of Ger–
many after the war, because it eliminated the Jewish question as a prob–
lem of German democratic politics. Democratic politicians did not have
to deal with ethnic problems and religious conflicts, with anti-Semitism,
and with Jews who actually lived in Cologne, or Frankfurt, and so on.
But unified Germany, as was the Federal Republic before it, is a multi–
ethnic democracy. And the Westernization of German democracy is not
yet complete.
It
won't be complete until German citizenship laws elimi–
nate any connotation of ethnicity or blood related to citizenship. When
citizenship is no longer connected to
Deutschesvolk
of one kind or an–
other, then I think the second major test for the future of German
democracy will have been passed.
Third, the problem of anti-Communism and criticism of Commu–
nism has a distinctive history in West Germany that it doesn't have, say,
in the United States. And although I have been a critic of the West
German left and its reluctance to criticize the Soviet Union in the 1970s
and 1980s, I also think that it is important to keep in mind that the
Cold War against the Soviet Union in the 1950s evoked, consciously or
unconsciously, the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. So, to criticize
the Soviet Union, with the same passion you might, was for most of the
younger generation of West Germans emotionally impossible. While I
don't agree with them, I can understand it.
Finally, as an historian, I try to get as much as possible of the truth
about the past. Our knowledge is growing. It is important that democ–
ratization be based upon justice. This means looking at the past with
open eyes and corning to terms with past injustices that have been done.
This entails open and honest discussion of what happened and who did
what. I think of Habermas at the age of sixteen, listening to the radio
broadcasts of the Nuremburg trials, hearing Robert Jackson and Telford
Taylor and Hardley Shawcross tell it like it was: dates, facts, places, who
did what. That had an enormous impact on him. And when I think of
Gunter Grass's satire of Martin Heidegger's obscurantism, I think it
probably had an enormous impact on Grass as well. It is important to
try to establish what happened. Important intrinsically, as well as to the
stability of democracy.
Carnes
Lord:
Thank you very much. Two more questions.
