The Transformation of the “German Question” and its Current Situation
How can Europe get the Germany it needs?
Germany was the last country in Europe to achieve its unification, and it paid the price for completing it so late. The “German question” refers to that idea long believed that whenever unified, Germany becomes a threat to the whole world due to its peculiar character. This attitude has been conveyed by a body of scholarship and analytical writing that imputed the German question to the German nature and unusual political culture. Addressing the notion of the German Question allows tackling Germany’s role in Europe and the world. It also allows for tackling the way it conceives itself as a nation. To understand the German question, it is as essential to grasping the German context as placing it within the broader framework of the major European powers’ interests and the political formula of the Western nation-state.
Bismarck’s diplomatic system and the birth of the “Deutsche Frage”
For the Germans, the German question invokes the question of their national identity and nation status among other powers. It revolves around whether national unity should encompass all German-speaking regions known as the Großdeutsche Lösung or include only the northern German states, Kleindeutsche Lösung. These debates are embedded in the context of rising German nationalism during the 19th century until the ultimate German unification in 1871. From the beginning, Otto Von Bismarck perceived the danger underlying his country’s central location. His worst nightmare was seeing Germany surrounded by a coalition of neighbours attacking on all fronts; the “nightmare of coalitions” ultimately shattered the system he created. Therefore, he decided not to choose either of the two geopolitical solutions. He avoided pursuing either the Gross or Klein Deutschland geopolitically, as both solutions contained significant flaws. Pursuing the Gross Deutschland would mean expanding overseas or into Germany’s immediate neighbourhood and destabilising the whole system. The Klein Deutschland option also contained a fatal ingredient. The problem would have been that even by avoiding territorial expansion, the need for international trade would have led to seeking a maritime route. As Germany is a continental power with no serious navy, developing a navy army would have represented a severe threat to Anglo-American power. Hence, Bismarck chose to avoid both options to preserve a peaceful period and foster economic growth. He focused on domestic economic development by industrialising Germany, known as the Prussian model or the Iron & Rye alliance. The genius diplomacy of Bismarck leads to social stability and economic growth, putting Germany at the center of the European power structure and circumventing geopolitical conflicts.
In 1897, Bismarck was expelled because German leaders thought Bismarck’s policy wasn’t right for Germany. However, despite Bismarck’s conservative foreign policy, he had created the material conditions and the desire to expand its Lebensraum through Germany’s modernisation and, thus, the beginning of a conflicting relationship with the major powers. Indeed, due to its location in central Europe, Germany’s vitality was immediately seen as a threat to other European powers. Being a latecomer unified nation in central Europe was in dissonance with the international balance of powers. The “German question” thus became a tangible problem from the perspective of other European powers. Let’s note that behind the assumption that a country is overweight and constrained to destroy the balance of power lies a worldview and power interests. Has it been said that Britain, France or Russia were “overweight” for the balance of power in Europe? From the German perspective, the German question was whether it was bounced to be a marginal power if it remained fastened within the tight structure of Europe’s traditional balance of power. It is, therefore, imperative to overcome the historiographical bias that attributes Germany’s ambition and fears to its unique political culture.
The German question falls under three central political systems: Weltpolitik, Westpolitik, and Ostpolitik
Weltpolitik
After Bismarck, starting with Wilhelm II, German leaders immediately embarked on the risky Weltpolitik of Gross and Klein Deutschland. Although Bismarck had an aggressive style, his foreign policy was — as we have seen — quite conservative. His successors were aggressive in their tone and foreign policy. The German Question during the German empire was viewed as a necessity to expand territorially and not be confined to central Europe. They thus pursued German naval rearmament as well as imperial interests overseas. Our perspective as twenty-first-century searchers allows us to assert that these two features of German foreign policy were significant mistakes. Still, in a world system of imperial rivalry, it was customary to seek to establish one’s own sphere of influence and overcome the limits of Germany’s geopolitical situation and the status quo determined by others. Understanding Germany’s economic development is crucial to grasp the German question’s importance from other powers’ perspectives. Germany’s economic growth came very fast and late compared to others. Particularly the steel industry and technology grew impressively, and they were more efficient than Britain or France. The advantage of being a latecomer to economic growth helped shaped modern capitalism and triggered the US and Great Britain’s admiration and envy. Competition finally turned into conflict, and the German problem should be considered as the consequence of the double-edged sword of latecomer dynamism.
Westpolitik
Hitler, although he knew Bismarck’s decision was the right one and critiqued Weltpolitik in Mein Kampf, once in power, pursued the Lebensraum idea and applied both the Gross and Klein Deutschland policy. Konrad Adenauer’s figure is critical to understanding the radical shift in Germany’s foreign policy after the war and how this shaped the “German Problem”. After the “Zero Hour”, the German problem became an identity issue for the Germans, and the question was to rebuild Germany in the context of a bipolar world. This government’s birth defect was its struggle to recuperate its sovereignty. Regaining German autonomy through European integration characterised Adenauer’s foreign policy. The three occupying powers transferred power to Adenauer, who undertook the Westpolitik. His policy regarding the German question was to secure West Germany’s security within Western institutions and preserve peace. He adopted a firm policy, Hallstein’s doctrine, which was a rigid policy freezing all diplomatic relationships with the GDR and countries with ties to the DGR. The GDR wasn’t recognised as a sovereign state by Federal Germany as the German unity figured as the Grundgesetz of the FRG. The German problem under Adenauer’s leadership consisted of not seeking reunification while still leaving the German problem open.
Ostpolitik
After two decades of rigid Westpolitik under the aegis of Hallstein’s doctrine, a new radical shift impacted German foreign policy. It gave an entirely different look to the German question: Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik. The SPD, the main opposition party, Willy Brandt’s party, gained important momentum then and began to take a different position on the East-West relationship. This policy was conceived as a radical shift in the FRG’s attitude towards the GDR. The idea behind Ostpolitik was to reframe the East-West relationship under the banner of Wandel durch Annäherung. Recognising the practical (not legitimate) existence of the GDR, recreating human contacts between both Germanys, helping the GDR economically, and creating a system of mutual renunciation of the use of force were all deeds undertaken under Ostpolitik created by Egon Bahr and put into practice by Willy Brandt, with a long-term view of restoring communication with the GDR. This shift illustrates a profound transformation in political culture and reality on the ground. Those years inaugurated the transition from a very rigid system to a more flexible multilateral one.
The recognition of the GDR by West Germany, the insistence that Bonn was the “Alleinvertretetung” (sole legitimate representative) of the German people and the effective personal ties between the two sides of the wall represented the bellwether of East-West relations at that time and the tangible reality of the extent to which the German question was still an unsolved issue for the Germans. However, many people, scholars, and leaders seemed satisfied with the precarious balance of a divided Germany and thought that this division had solved the German question. As time passed by and the pervasiveness of German unity got closer and closer to the inescapability of its fate, the debates in France and Britain reflected the fear that the idea of a reunified Germany evoked. Since Margaret Thatcher, with her anti-Europeanism, had withdrawn Britain as an important weight to counterbalance Germany –French public opinion wondered whether that was leaving the Federal Republic of Germany as the dominant power of the European community. By the late eighties, it seemed that the European political Zeitgeist was striving towards bringing the economies, the countries and the peoples of Europe closer through various European programs such as the common agricultural policy, the monetary and economic union or even the Erasmus program. Between the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the effective reunification of Germany in October 1990, there was still serious debate around the German problem. There was also the subsequent danger of a too-powerful Germany disturbing the balance of power in Europe once again, even reversing the existing alignment. Everything happened extremely fast, and the German leadership, through the events against the Western alliance of the late 1980s, grasped the popular mood. The two Germanys reunited despite the fears of mostly the French and British political leaders.
Does the German question still exist since reunification? Time has flown by since then, and the fear of most people seems to have faded.
Deutschlandfrage today
Philip Stephens April 18 2013. https://www.ft.com/content/3517ad4c-a74c-11e2-9fbe-00144feabdc0.
Does the spectre of the German question still haunt us today? Not really: Since Germany’s Zero Hour, she has wholly reset her foreign policy and attitude towards the world. The Germans have buried their aspirations for continental hegemony and world power. Today the German army struggles to find candidates for the military career. Moreover, it has implemented many institutional safeguards preventing the government from deciding upon the army’s mission. Germany proves its pacific view and inclusive attitude with strong symbolic gestures. Also, a major instrument of current German policy is dialogue, even with states that don’t share the same conception of the rule of law. Its foreign policy thus promotes dialogue, cooperation, international treaties and peace.
Germany doesn’t want to be Europe’s leader and is rather willing to have a strong France next to her. Germany’s economy depends on exports; therefore, it is vital for her to manage the rising AfD and pursue its inclusive attitude on the world stage. With the development of the intertwined European industry (tanks, Airbus), the European project is deepening, and this interconnectedness is the key to preserving Europe’s economic growth. Today, the fear lies more in the European Union being tied to Germany than in Germany planning her way outside the Union’s institutions. Another important safeguard against any German hegemonic drift resides in her tight relationship with America. The German parliament has added this clause in the preamble to the Franco-German treaty and specifies that the German American friendship comes first. This illustrates well that Germany needs a big brother that doesn’t feel threatened by her.
