The Bush Administration is less than thrilled with the German government these days. It seems their criticism of the U.S. on Iraq is viewed in a less than positive light.

Herr Schroeder was narrowly reelected, yet the State Dept. is not offering effusive praise to one of our closest allies.

My initial reaction is to tell Ari Fleischer, Donald Rumsfeld to get over it and reflect on this a bit. We have conducted an arrogant foreign policy, acting like a bunch of bullies telling the world that it is our way or the highway. I think the Justice Minister's comparison to Hitler was inappropriate, I do think it is indicative of the alienation we are brewing in other countries.

The Germans have been one of our best allies and we need to learn some lessons from this and stop acting like a bunch of blowhards on the world stage.

Thank you for this post. In my Turkey studies, I intend to pay a little more attention to Germany. Possibly, Germany is preparing itself for the world stage as a nation worthy of esteem. Looks like it.....

[ September 25, 2002: Message edited by: bluebird48234 ]

Germany *is* a nation "worthy of esteem." Even with its recent economic problems it still has the largest economy in Europe, it remains the most populous European nation after Russia, it possesses an extraordinary technological and material infrastructure, it is a major contributor to world culture (in the arts, music, literature, etc.): Germany is the anchor of the E.U.--what exactly do you mean, bluebird?

Germany still must deal with its role in World War I and especially with the horrifying Nazi period of 1933-1945, but that said, it has long since emerged as a major force in Europe. We should be thankful that its military power does not approach what it was before 1945. A peaceful and peace-focused Germany is one of the best things Europe, and the world, could ask for.

You basically answered your own question on this, fantomas.

Nevertheless, I would like to see Germany more PRO-active on the human rights front, for several reasons:
1/Their critical (we hope) relationship with Turkey, political and otherwise;
2/Their ability to maintain a playing position in the world markets;
3/Her culture's ability to attract world attention has few peers, Germany cannot afford to rest on her laurels; and,
4/Germany, although deceidedly in the potential stages, has a great deal to offer the world in the coming years.

Hence, I would (personally) like to see that used, at least in part, to inspire their allies first and then the rest of the world.

[ September 25, 2002: Message edited by: bluebird48234 ]

There is an excellent, in my view, take on the state of US/German relations. It's from the Guardian, a leftie paper from England. The last paragraph is especially good.

and of course Maureen Dowd's editorial in today's NY Times:

No More Bratwurst!

and of course Maureen Dowd's editorial in today's NY Times:

No More Bratwurst!

I'm just glad that people are finally speaking out against Bush's foreign policies...i.e. Gore.

Schroeder was all set to lose the election. He had failed miserably to deliver on any of his objectives related to improving the domestic economy. Germans generally characterized his first term in office as "disappointing".

Even if opposed to war with Iraq, it doesn't take a Machiavelli to figure that the best, perhaps only, way of restarting a rigorous program of arms inspections in Iraq (and ultimately avoiding war) was with the threat of military action. Most US allies understood this and soft-pedalled their opposition, in public at least, to Bush's proposed military adventure.

Schroeder understood all of this as well but made a calculated decision to play up his opposition to war in Iraq and play off of anti-American feeling in Germany after the pollsters determined that this could gain him sufficient votes to win the election. In so doing, he used the same play that Bush was accused of taking out of Hitler's play-book: creating a foreign bogeyman to divert the public from his domestic failures.

Don't kid yourself. This was about far more than German opposition to Bush's Iraq policy. There are many in Germany on the left and right who view all things American with great distaste. Schroeder ignored his responsibilities as a NATO ally and stoked anti-American feeling in his country to win an election. In the process he has knowingly made war in Iraq more rather than less likely. Such a war is far more likely to cost American rather than German lives. He is as craven and despicable a politician as you will find anywhere and no friend to Americans. May he and his government be short-lived.

[ September 25, 2002: Message edited by: Torgauer ]

Torgauer, that's an excellent analysis.

I read something in the LA Times that was interesting. I'll post it all here as the Times is a registration site: [quote]When northern Germans answer the telephone or encounter a friend on the street, they say a simple guten tag--good day. But in the south, the salutation is gruess gott--greet God--an expression so common it no longer really alludes to religious worship but still puts off those unused to a custom dating to the Crusades.

Much about the southern lilt in the language of Bavarians grates on the ears and nerves of other Germans, and that cultural clash may help explain why Edmund Stoiber was turning off voters still making up their minds ahead of today's election. The Bavaria state governor, who is challenging Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder for the leadership of the country, had aired his views mostly via print interviews until two recent televised debates. Those head-to-head clashes with his more telegenic opponent put his southern ways before the eyes--and ears--of millions of voters.

A muddled policy on how to deal with Iraq and a dearth of expertise on environmental issues have hurt the head of the Christian Social Union in his bid to become the first member of his conservative party to lead modern Germany. But as the perceived embodiment of socially restrictive Roman Catholicism aiming to rule a more liberal and predominantly Protestant land, Stoiber and his singsong Bavarian accent have increasingly been getting a cold reception. "The party would have had better chances if they had chosen Angela Merkel," German history professor Laurenz Demps said of the more moderate northerner who heads the Christian Democratic Union, which is aligned with Stoiber's party. "Southerners are not so well loved up here. That is a fact. But the Bavarians are so insular, they don't even know that."

No one is saying Stoiber is going to lose because of his accent or even because of his views on family and social policy, which northerners tend to see as old-fashioned. But in a race as close as the one that ends today, such personal nuances could be influential. Guided by his Hamburg media advisor, Michael Spreng, Stoiber abandoned his customary green felt hat and boiled wool jackets for three-piece suits when he was on northern campaign trails. He also steered clear of the beer halls and oompah bandstands that were his usual platforms when he stumped in friendly territory.

Still, he was pelted with rotten vegetables and empty bottles at recent rallies, prompting his aides and security detachment to carry large umbrellas to protect the candidate and themselves. The 60-year-old Stoiber brushes off suggestions that he is hitting a cultural barrier that can't be breached. "It has been said that a Bavarian doesn't stand a chance because of resistance in the north," Stoiber recently told journalists. "But I think that time has passed. I think northerners have changed. They are more tolerant now."

Stoiber carries an added burden among his northern countrymen: He says he will install a raft of fellow southerners in the Cabinet if his alliance wins. His expected choice for overseeing a new economics super-ministry, former Baden-Wuerttemberg state Gov. Lothar Spaeth, is widely admired. But the Bavarian likely to take over the vital Interior Ministry, Guenther Beckstein, is a northern liberal's nightmare. Now serving as state interior minister in Bavaria, Beckstein espouses archconservative and right-wing religious doctrines that have set him apart from many even in his own party. And although Stoiber has been careful to toe a centrist line, especially during his northern campaign swings, analysts see his views on women and family as out of step with the social mainstream, even if he has appointed a single mother from the east as an advisor.

Asked during the first TV debate what role he saw for a politician's wife, Stoiber replied stiffly that his own spouse, Karin, provides moral support but doesn't talk politics with him. "I don't believe that would be appropriate," Stoiber told the biggest German television audience ever to tune in to a political program. Schroeder, whose fourth wife is a former journalist and a generation younger than her husband and the Stoibers, was able to put himself forward as the feminist's advocate in his response. "I have to ask myself what kind of perception of women one must have to want to reduce one's wife to being friendly and nice but silent on political issues," Schroeder said, drawing praise from post-debate commentators of both sexes.

Germans vote for political parties rather than directly for a chancellor, with the victorious party or biggest faction in an alliance seating its lead candidate in the chancellery. But voters are increasingly choosing parties with personalities in mind, and Schroeder is far more popular than his rival. The conservatives lag the ruling Social Democrats by only two or three percentage points in most voter surveys. But recently Stoiber ranked ninth among individual politicians, with a 50% approval rating, compared with second place and 73% for Schroeder. Germany's most popular politician is leftist Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who had an 81% positive rating.

Much of the shift toward Schroeder and his Social Democrats in the closing days of the campaign came from the huge bloc of undecided voters just making up their minds. Most of those fence-sitters hail from the north and east; most southerners have long demonstrated their intention of voting for Stoiber. Serious issues drove the campaign, with Schroeder picking up strength for his deft handling of a recent flood catastrophe and for assuring Germans he won't enter a looming war against Iraq that he has labeled a U.S. "adventure."

But scholars of the German psyche say the geographic issue has been a factor, especially among easterners whose atheistic Communist past makes them wary of people overtly asserting their religion. "For a lot of people, this is undesirable," Demps, history professor at Berlin's Humboldt University, said of the Bavarians' invocation of God in every greeting. "We in the north prefer a society that is unconfessionalized."

---

I, for one, am glad to see a country where being openly religious is a liability.

When I was in Berlin last year, I was very much aware of a North/South division. I went on the Reichstag tour and there were things there that basically said "Well, the Nazi's were a Bavarian thing. You know how those peasants down South are...." That's heavily paraphrased, of course, and it won't wash to try and fob the Nazi regime off on one region of the country, but it pointed out that there's the same sort of division between the religious south and more secular north in Germany that there is in the US.

[ September 25, 2002: Message edited by: Jim Allen ]