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May 17, 2002/Sivan 6, 5762, Vol. 54, No.35
Germany tries to define itself
TOBY AXELROD
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
BERLIN - A controversy has erupted in Germany over Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's decision to discuss Germany's national identity with a writer who once said it was time to stop using the Holocaust to criticize Germany.
Before the public discussion was held on May 8 - the 57th anniversary of Nazi Ger-many's surrender to the Allies - the Central Council of Jews in Germany said it was "irritated and bewildered" by Schroeder's decision to conduct the discussion with writer Martin Walser.
Jewish leaders remained unhappy after the event was held.
"The composition, program and conduct of the discussion confirmed our doubts and fears," Paul Spiegel, president of the Central Council, told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper the day after.
Jewish officials also were irked by the choice of moderator - journalist Christoph Dieckmann, who wrote last year in Die Zeit newspaper that "Israel's arrogant belief in its chosenness is a curse."
On the evening of the event, some 200 protesters gathered near the headquarters of the Social Democrats, carrying banners with messages such as "No Forgiveness, No Forgetting."
Dieckmann's article last year repeated "19th-century Christian cliches about the 'Eternal Jew' and 'eternal Jewish character,' " said Jeremiah Riemer, an American scholar of European politics currently living in Berlin.
"I think it's strange, to say the least, that Chancellor Schroeder is seeking this dialogue with two people who play very, very deliberately with classic anti-Semitic subtexts," Riemer said.
Professor Julius Schoeps, director of the Moses Mendelssohn Institute at the University of Potsdam, defended Walser.
"I am against criticism of Walser by people who don't know his books," Schoeps said in a newspaper interview.
Dieckmann introduced the debate by saying, "There are no anti-Semites or nationalists on this podium."
Acknowledging the protests, he apologized for his line about Israel in last year's article.
"I did write that, and it was dumb and untrue, and I have regretted it ever since," the journalist said.
The discussion between Schroeder and Walser ultimately revealed how difficult it still is for Germany to define itself - even more than 50 years after World War II ended.
Though the generation involved with or affected by the Nazi era is rapidly fading, the discussion showed that Germany's struggle to come to terms with its past is very much alive.
Schroeder tried to define modern Germany in terms of its role within Europe, its reintegration of the former East and West Germanys, and its self-definition in terms of values rather than place.
He also suggested that, without the heavy reparation demands on Germany after World War I, there would have been no Hitler.
Without Hitler, the argument goes, there would have been no Auschwitz. The theory of indirect Allied responsibility for Nazi war crimes is a common theme of conservative historians in Germany.
In 1998, when accepting Germany's highest literary award, Walser lamented the "repeated representation of" Germany's "shame."
His comments led to a wrenching, months-long debate with the late Ignatz Bubis, then head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, about whether it was acceptable for Walser to express his longing for an end to public discussion in Germany about the Holocaust.
After the horrors committed by the Nazis in the name of "pure" nationhood, the theme of national identity remains taboo in Germany.
Even the word "nation" is rarely used to describe Germany, except in right-wing circles. "Land" is the preferred term.
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