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Solving the 'German Problem' |
| Section: CURRENT ISSUES / SPECIAL REPORT--THE GOP AT THE CROSSROADS |
| Author: David Carlton |
| Publication:
The World & I Online |
| Issue Date: 12/1/1992 |
| Size: 3,080 Words, 18,467 Characters |
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As the dust settles after the French referendum and as European governments try with greater or less enthusiasm to patch up the shattered exchange rate mechanism (ERM), the underlying reality is that "the German problem" is once again coming to the top of the agenda. And no people are more aware of this than the Germans themselves.
For at least a century, "the German problem" has been actually or latently the most acute of all those facing European statesmen. It is inextricably linked to what has less frequently been called "the French problem." Essentially both "problems" arise from what may be the greatest misfortune in modern European history, namely that by the seventeenth century the great majority of French speakers were consciously living under one national roof whereas this condition was not achieved by the more numerous German speakers until the days of Otto von Bismarck. The French speakers thus grew used to belonging to what was normally the preeminent state on the continent of Europe. "The French problem" was and perhaps still is about how the French could bring themselves to accept that an arriviste state, with a significantly larger population, greater industrial strength, and higher standards of technological education, had now a claim to be recognized as primus inter pares. And the German problem was and perhaps still is how a proud people could come to terms with being apparently vexatiously denied the wholehearted recognition by others of this claim. For from 1894 until 1940, the French sought to resist their fate by forging a succession of alliances to the east and, when possible, with the Anglo-Saxons. The aim was to ensure that Paris remained at the hub of the European system and that Germany would never be wholly accepted at the heart of the world establishment. This could be compared to ...
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...excessive fear or hostility to a new Germany's assertiveness. And, in such circumstances, Great Britain would be too diminished and too marginalized to be able, even if it so wished, to bring the kind of pressure to bear in Paris that was so decisive in Chamberlain's day. In short, we could face a future in which, ironically, it will be the French problem that will prove the more intractable.
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(The World & I Online) |
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