The New German Question: Remembrance, Responsibility,
or Sin of Omission?
By Ambassador J.D. Bindenagel

November 9, 2007, marks the eighteenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which brought freedom to East Europe and democracy to Europe as a whole. Europe is at peace, Germany is united; NATO and the European Union have enlarged, and the Balkans Wars are contained. Life is normal, or is it?

Over the last two years the Kaczynski brothers, President and Prime Minister of Poland, have argued that President Walesa's early engagement with the reformed communists in the 1990s was an original sin in the transition to democracy and was the basis of Poland's problems. To make amends, they sought to exclude former communists and their collaborators from politics and attacked their unexposed co-conspirators. This internal debate included unreasonable demands for greater Polish voting rights in the European Union and blame for Polish problems was spilled on the Germans, Europeans, and Polish opponents. Anti-European and anti-German emotions in Poland were heated as the debate roared. This historical debate has taken a toll on German and European Union relations with Poland, has led to the October Polish elections, and has opened questions on the European Union's future. It also reminds us that the trouble with the past is that it is not even past, it is present day politics.

Germany's own transition is not excluded from historical re-examination. In 1989, while the pace of the revolution was breathtaking, German unification was not on the active political agenda of either East or West Germany. Now the understanding and acceptance of the events that led to the achievement of German unification seem to be largely forgotten. Did East Germany's contribution to unification through the peaceful revolution, free elections and accession to the Basic Law make German unity possible? Reflecting on the new Germany in 1998, President Roman Herzog said the "process of unification, in short, will continue to take place within a constitutional framework that has successfully met the challenges of a changing world for a half century now." Yes, the German Basic Law and its commitment to human dignity are the political bases for the Berlin Republic, but unity did not just happen through international negotiations.

Remembrance is the basis of sound politics and the legitimacy of German sovereignty rests on getting the history right. If not, a reborn Germany faces a sin of omission that will return as a political question as did the Kaczynski's Polish original sin debate that has plagued their politics. Overcoming history (Geschichtsbewältigung) is well known in Germany. West Germans are understandably proud of their courageous examination of the Holocaust, which supports their commitment to human dignity. The Volkskammer began and the Bundestag then continued an historical examination of the role of the East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi), confronting the crimes of the SED regime. The lost stories of the peaceful revolution, however, are missing the history of unification, a sin of omission that could lead to questioning of the German constitutional commitment to the inviolability of human dignity and Germany's role to ensure that "Never Again Auschwitz" becomes more than a slogan.

President Herzog said that united Germany rests on two pillars: one, the democracy of the Federal Republic of Germany, and two, the 1989 democratic revolution and 1990 election in the German Democratic Republic. Yet too many people still see united Germany as West Germany simply enlarged. Is the omission of the stories of its revolutionary birth of the Berlin Republic - daring Germans willing to confront and throw off their oppressors - not a compelling story of the fight for liberty that needs to be told and re-told? If Germany is to avoid a future political battle reminiscent of the Polish battle of original sin led by the Kaczynski brothers, remembering the successful revolution will play an important role. Incorporating the complete story into Germany's history is crucial for a deeper understanding of the Berlin Republic.

While the European Union, born from the ashes of many centuries of war, has found ways to pool national sovereignty and avoid armed conflict among its members, conflicts in the transition from communist-ruled East Europe of the Cold War have occurred and others cannot be excluded. If the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, then Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic's misuse of history is illustrative. Using the 1389 Battle of Kosovo to re-nationalize Serbia, he waged war on the Bosnians, Croatians and the Kosovars. Kosovo has been left in limbo as a trusteeship of the United Nations and is still a flash point in EU-Russian relations. The Balkans wars are warnings to us that history matters.

Transitions are disruptive and often bloody; the surprise of the 1989 Democratic Revolution, led by the Solidarity Movement, Charter 77, and East German underground dissidents seeking renewal of the GDR, was that it was carried out peacefully. However, peaceful change does not mean change has not happened. The current Polish historical debate shows we have not reached the end of that transition.

If the past is politics, then we should deepen the historical debate about the path to unity, one that addresses the revolution and what German sovereignty means to Germany, Europe, America, and the world today. I am chagrined whenever I hear that East Germany contributed only three things to united Germany - the right turn on red arrow, the Sandmännchen puppet and Chancellor Angela Merkel. So quickly have we forgotten those Germans in the German Democratic Republic who in the fall of 1989 took to the streets for freedom, risked their lives and their careers for their beliefs.

The East German dissidents defied the Honecker regime at a time when Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev faced the demise of the Soviet Union and loss of the Soviet iron grip on the German Democratic Republic. Demonstrators pressed for the freedom to travel, while carefully avoiding confrontations with the Volkspolizei, the Betriebskampfgruppen, and the national Volksarmee, which they would surely have lost. They championed Gorbachev's call for political openness, "Glasnost," to help them defy Honecker. They counted on Gorbachev's statement that those who come too late will be punished by history. The demonstrators wanted history to punish Honecker, and they marched until the SED ousted him from office. They formed political parties under the noses of the Stasi, which led to the abolition of the SED monopoly on power in the constitution. They continued to march for freedom as countrymen fled to the West by the hundreds of thousands. They brought down the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. Finally, the East Germans voted for a Volkskammer to unify Germany through East Germany's accession. German sovereignty and its constitution grew out of a revolution that was determined to put the fate of Germany in German hands, not Soviet or the West. Still the peaceful revolution is discounted, disdained and ignored. Ironically, while the revolution swept through the East, the West worried more about shop closing hours.

With unification came full German sovereignty and international responsibilities that have changed the German role in the world. Soon after the last Russian military forces left Berlin in August, 1994, NATO enlarged. As acting American Ambassador in Germany, I signed the agreements for the first NATO enlargement making the territory of the former German Democratic Republic and the Bundeswehr Ost integral parts of NATO. That NATO expansion followed close on the heels of a Karlsruhe court decision allowing Luftwaffe crews to participate in out-of-area operations in support of NATO in the Balkans. Deployment of Bundeswehr troops to Bosnia came next, and soon a German general took up a position in the NATO chain of command over combat troops outside German territory.

By 1999, when the ethnic cleansing had taken so many lives in the Balkans and spread to Kosovo, international outrage was inflamed and military intervention was demanded. Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer joined U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to convince NATO to intervene with a bombing campaign to stop the killing. Fischer justified the German decision by its Basic Law commitment to ensure that "Never again Auschwitz" had meaning because Germany was called to protect the inviolability of human dignity. The question is whether a West Germany, enlarged, could have made these decisions without full sovereignty brought by the 1989 revolution, the March 18, 1990, Volkskammer election, and the 2+4 Negotiations that led to the unification of Germany. I think not.

Today the Bundestag is debating Germany's role in Afghanistan. The recent Bundestag vote on ISAF demonstrated how Germany has defined a Berlin Republic that understands and accepts its international security role, particularly in NATO. The Afghanistan vote for Operation Enduring Freedom is another step along the way of defining German exercise of sovereignty. I am confident Germany will make the right decision.

Of course, the future of Germany lies in much more than the story of security policy. Some say that the "German question" has been resolved since 1990, but the European question remains open and Germany is still the key to the European question. The Kaczynski brothers' boxing bout over Solidarity's original sin of engaging with Poland's communists reminds us that the past is today's politics. The history of German unification with East Germany's accession to the Basic Law did not end the politics. Remembering that both western democracy and the eastern revolution changed Germany is the challenge. The Kaczynski Polish historical debate calls on Germany to remember its unification history and avoid a sin of historical omission that opens its commitment to human dignity. Failure to remember that history portends a new German question.

J.D. Bindenagel is Vice President for Community, Government and International Affairs at DePaul University in Chicago. He is former U.S. Ambassador and served in three Germanys from 1972-2002. He was U.S. Minister in East Berlin, 1989-1990, and is a member of the AICGS Senior Advisory Council. The views are his own.

This essay appeared in the November 30, 2007, AICGS Advisor.