Is Brandt So Special?

Brandt certainly had a personal quality that made him unique. There are some national leaders, like Nicolas Sarkozy, who argue that religious ideas do not belong in foreign relations. During his official visit to Algeria in 2007, Sarkozy stated that there is no need to apologize for colonial misdeeds: “I’m for a recognition of the facts but not for repentance, which is a religious notion that has no place in relations between states.”[2] He even said that it is absurd to apologize for something in which the current generation was not involved. There are also those like Alcide de Gasperi, Robert Schuman, or Willy Brandt, who shared a strong willingness to connect political actions with moral value. De Gasperi, Italian prime minister from 1945 to 1953, wrote in his book Discorsi Politici that to be Christian in politics implies a profound sense of duty for fraternity and morality. He confessed as well that keeping the same faith inside and outside the Parliament is a constant struggle of his life. Whether it came from his religious faith or personality, Brandt had a visionary leadership based on morality that lasts over generations: “Willy Brandt’s gesture of reconciliation across the borders of old enemies will be interpreted in the spirit it was made. [...] He will live on in our history as the great Peace and Reconciliation Chancellor of Germany.”[3]

But this was not all. One of the main reasons his own conviction could lead to a stabilized reconciliatory policy was that there was a consistent national plan that went beyond his personal strategy. Around him, there were many intellectuals and political elites including Egon Bahr, who provided ideas and thoughts to shape a long-term foreign policy such as Ostpolitik. This teamwork transcending any particular political affiliation allowed Germany to develop a coherent national guideline for reconciliation, which is not the case between South Korea and Japan. Having become a democratic country only recently, South Korea still suffers from a severe factionalism while Japan, with its one leading party system, has no room to embrace diverse voices in the Parliament. These fragile domestic political structures thus create additional obstacles to building up a long-term policy, which would not easily get reversed with a new administration.

Reconciliation

The Importance of German Societal Actors

The Euro-zone crisis has focused international attention on Germany’s power, depicting the Federal Republic either as selfless savior (constructive power) or as dictatorial demon (dominant power), depending on observers’ nationality and profession.  The spotlight has turned mainly on the motivations and maneuverability of Chancellor Angela Merkel and the German government.  However, the political elite’s choices are essentially driven by its perceptions of German society’s economic and financial policy preferences, shaped in good measure by lessons from Germany’s pre-war past.

The importance of German societal organizations’ attitudes in today’s financial and economic crisis—whether industry, banks, the German “Occupy Wall Street” movement, or trade unions—provides an opportunity to think more broadly about the role of societal actors in Germany’s efforts over six decades to learn from its history. Reconciliation with former enemies has been a leitmotif of German foreign policy since 1949, and institutionalized, non-governmental actors have played a key role in Germany’s transformation from pariah nation to respected member of the international community, both in Europe and beyond.  This panoramic view of Germany’s acceptability among neighbors is more telling about German power than the snapshot impression rendered by Hitler masks in the Greek anti-German demonstrations surrounding the terms of a financial bail-out for Athens.

German Societal Actors Confronting the Past through Reconciliation

German societal organizations were early players in Germany’s international reconciliation, often acting as catalysts for later German official initiatives. With France, Israel, Poland, and Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic, religious actors—the Protestant and Catholic churches, Action Reconciliation/Service for Peace (Aktion Sühnezeichen/Friedensdienste), the Societies for Christian-Jewish Cooperation (Gesellschaften für christlich-jüdische Zusammenarbeit)—took important  first steps to forge new relationships with external victims of Nazism. They were joined by organizations devoted to the examination of German history (German Historical Institutes;  bilateral textbook commissions); friendship societies; economic entities; cultural actors; and youth, educational, and research exchange organizations in building cross-border, broad societal connections that complemented the reconciliation activities of German governments.

German political foundations have been unique non-governmental organizations in reconciliation, often providing abroad channels of communication, especially to opposition parties, not easily accessed by the German government. Like many other reconciliation actors, for example the Goethe Institute, political foundations were based in the partner country, whereas other German players, for example trade unions, operated from a German base. Regardless of location, structure, and size, this dense network of non-governmental organizations was committed to drawing lessons from the past, either directly through commemoration and active learning, or indirectly through creating new relationships of amity that contrasted with the enmity of earlier periods.  They have organized conferences and meetings on professional and functional topics; the twinning of cities and municipalities; personal exchanges and encounters; economic, academic, and cultural partnerships; and joint, problem-solving institutions. They also regularly displayed solidarity with the partner country at times of political crisis between governments, and at times publicly differed with the German government when they saw inaction toward the partner country. German governments have recognized consistently the vital contribution such organizations have played in reconciliation.

Shore earned his doctorate in modern European history from St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and has lived for more than six years in Europe, traveling for extended periods across the continent, including Germany, Russia, and the Balkans. His academic honors include winning Harvard’s Derek Bok Teaching Award, Oxford’s St. Antony’s Book Prize, a Dupont Fellowship, an Idea Prize from Germany’s Kõrber Foundation, and research grants from the Fulbright Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, Earhart Foundation, Daimler-Chrysler Foundation, Robert Bosch Foundation, and the Royal Historical Society of Great Britain. He has appeared on National Public Radio, Dialogue, and other media outlets. Shore’s articles and editorials on foreign policy have appeared in The International Herald Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The Baltimore Sun, Newsday, Haaretz, The National Interest, Orbis, The Journal of Contemporary History, and Intelligence and National Security. His books have been reviewed and profiled in Foreign Affairs, The Financial Times, Washington Monthly, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The New Republic On-line.

Things Have Looked Better….
The first stop the Pope made in Berlin was at the official site of the German Federal President – Christian Wulff, a self-identified Catholic, divorced and remarried – and an example of the perceptions of the Catholicism in Germany not in line with the Pope’s dogma. German Catholics have expressed their dissatisfaction with the Church in many ways during recent years. One is a significant attrition in members, a decline of those Catholics attending Mass or having their children baptized or marrying within the Church – all signs of the Church’s loss of traction. Still, the representative of two thousand years of Christianity is received generally with respect as a figure of faith.

One special dimension of this visit to Germany is the Pope’s trip to Erfurt- the city where a Catholic monk named Martin Luther began his trail on the way to challenging the Vatican and laying the foundation for what became known as the Reformation. The Pope has proclaimed his belief in the unity of all Christians in Christ, yet the vestiges of five hundred years of Protestant-Catholic divisions remain intact, in terms of both different interpretations of faith and the institutions surrounding them. Benedikt will meet with leaders of the Protestant Church in Erfurt and there will certainly be discussion of theological bridge building.

A Moral Compass
The challenge that the Pope must confront in Germany, and Europe as a whole, is building a bridge between religious values and the societies in which Catholics see choices for themselves that differ from rituals, and even doctrine, promoted by the Pope, yet still prefer to call themselves faithful − be they supporters of a woman’s right to choose, homosexuals, or others who the Pope might label “cafeteria Catholics” − picking and choosing what they like and dislike about Catholic doctrine. The forces of modern secularism and individualism are both very strong in German society, a development which the Pope sees as a threat to the coherence of living a Christian life.

And yet, there is no possibility that one can prevent those forces from developing further. It is rather more challenging – and promising – to seek to engage fully in the exchange between the forces of modernity and the need for a moral compass, a message which he sent worldwide during his speech to the UN on human rights in 2008. In the twenty-first century, the Pope may not be able to enforce how that is done. But he can, among many others, enable people to find ways of pursuing it.

Download Publication

Download Publication

Download Publication

Download Publication

Download Publication