German Identity

[Nictoshek]

German Identity, Long Dormant, Reasserts Itself

By NICHOLAS KULISH
September 10, 2010

BERLIN — As a youth in the 1950s, the film director Volker Schlöndorff tried to hide his German origins by learning to speak unaccented French. This summer, his daughter painted German flags on her cheeks and joined crowds of thousands on the Kurfürstendamm, a historic avenue, waving their black, red and gold banners to celebrate the country’s World Cup victories.

Elena Schlöndorff confessed that she never watched her father’s Academy Award-winning adaptation of “The Tin Drum,” Günter Grass’s World War II epic, until a new director’s cut was released earlier this year. She had little interest in the Nazi era. “I don’t really feel touched by it,” said Ms. Schlöndorff, 18, with a teenage shrug. “In our generation, we’ve gotten past it.”

Twenty years after reunification, Germany has come to terms with itself in a way that the postwar generation proclaimed would never be possible and Ms. Schlöndorff’s post-Berlin Wall generation finds completely natural.

The shift is evident on the airwaves, where German songs are staging a comeback against the dominance of American pop, and in best sellers about Goethe and Schiller or in discovering Germany by foot, by car and by train from the Bavarian Alps to the old Hanseatic ports on the Baltic Sea.

In Parliament, politicians have debated ending conscription, threatening the post-Nazi ideal of an army of ordinary citizens, as German soldiers fight in Afghanistan. Despite fears of rising income inequality, Germany’s economic engine is humming and unemployment has fallen significantly in the former East Germany.

And Chancellor Angela Merkel has led a bloc of countries fending off President Obama’s calls for stimulus spending to combat the economic crisis, certain that the world should follow Germany’s example of austerity.

German pride did not die after the country’s defeat in World War II. Instead, like Sleeping Beauty in the Brothers Grimm version of the folk tale, it only fell into a deep slumber. The country has now awakened, ready to celebrate its economic ingenuity, its cultural treasures and the unsullied stretches of its history.

As Germany embarks on this journey of self-discovery, the question is whether it will leave behind a European project which was built in no small measure on the nation’s postwar guilt and on its pocketbook.

“Maybe it’s our time again,” said Catherine Mendle, 25, a school social worker strolling the grounds and halls of the square glass and concrete Chancellery building on a recent afternoon as part of a government open house. A military band played in the background, and Mrs. Merkel signed autographs for curious visitors.

“We have this extreme helper syndrome, to try to make the world love us again, and it’s completely overdone,” Ms. Mendle said. Germany, she said, had been reduced to simple stereotypes — Oktoberfest, auto factories, the Holocaust. Its rich traditions in music and literature, and its enduring emphasis on social welfare and a strong commitment to the environment, deserve more respect abroad and at home, Ms. Mendle said.

When Mr. Grass’s latest book came out in August, it was not the sort of recapitulation of Nazi crimes that made the Nobel Prize-winning writer world famous, but a “declaration of love,” as the subtitle states, to Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s collection of German words into an unfinished dictionary.

“There is a lust to explore our contribution to world culture in Germany right now,” said Matthias Matussek, a journalist for the magazine Der Spiegel and author of a book exploring reasons Germans could be proud. His book generated significant controversy when it appeared in 2006 and now would be “just one of dozens on the shelf,” Mr. Matussek said.

In ways large and small Germany is flexing its muscles and reasserting a long-repressed national pride. Dozens of recent interviews across the country, with workers and businessmen, politicians and homemakers, artists and intellectuals, found a country more at ease with itself and its symbols, like its flag and its national anthem — a people still aware of their country’s history, but less willing to let it dictate their actions.

Concerns and Cautions

The change has not been universally welcomed, even in Germany. It has led to unusual scenes, such as antinationalist German leftists twice tearing down a more than 50-foot German flag that Lebanese immigrants had draped down the front of a building in the Berlin neighborhood of Neukölln this summer during the World Cup, when a soccer team full of immigrants’ children captivated the country.

There are fears of emerging (or resurgent) chauvinism, seen recently in broadsides against Muslims by Thilo Sarrazin, who is stepping down from the board of the German central bank, after publishing a divisive best seller saying that Muslim immigrants are draining the social-welfare state and reproducing faster than ethnic Germans.

Diplomats and politicians have voiced rising concern over Germany’s direction in recent years, whether in striking a contentious gas-pipeline deal with Russia or blocking NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine.

The leading philosopher Jürgen Habermas warned recently that Germany had become a “self-absorbed colossus.” The financier George Soros said this summer in a speech in Berlin that the government was “endangering the European Union” with its economic policies.

Germans, most of whose salaries and standard of living have not improved as the economy has strengthened, are more disenchanted than ever with the financial demands of the European Union. Questions about Germany’s commitment to the bloc found renewed urgency during the Greek debt crisis, which had threatened the stability of the euro, but signs had emerged well before that.

In the rush to pass the Lisbon Treaty, an accord intended to increase the European Union’s political and foreign policy powers, Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe declared in June 2009 that the country’s constitutional identity “is not open to integration” and that the public perception of politics remained connected “to patterns of identification related to the nation-state, language, history and culture.”

While the court approved the treaty with several conditions, the strident tone of the decision was cause for alarm among supporters in Berlin and Brussels of a more unified Europe. A confidential analysis prepared for the president of the European Parliament said that the decision meant “this far and no further” for European integration.

The resistance to new demands partly reflects the transformation Germany has undergone in recent years. The country fused a dynamic economy in the West with a bankrupt one in the East. Germans were forced to realize that foreign guest workers were never going home — one-fifth of its residents are now immigrants or of immigrant background. The return of the capital to Berlin and the construction of a national Holocaust memorial stirred the nation’s darkest memories.

“It’s not like the 1930s, where the jackboots are going to be stomping into other countries,” said William M. Drozdiak, the president of the American Council on Germany. “But having moved the capital from Bonn back to Berlin, there has been a profound psychological change, shifting the center of gravity to the east, with Germany thinking more like a Central European power.”

Concern about a more independent-minded Germany surfaced before the Berlin Wall fell on Nov. 9, 1989. Partly to dispel such fears, the political elites of the day, such as Chancellor Helmut Kohl, actually accelerated Germany’s commitment to its neighbors, helping the European Union expand eastward and create a common currency.

Germans were not eager to give up their beloved Deutsche mark at the time. Their reluctance has only grown as Germany has been called on to help bail out Greece and perhaps other European countries that have mismanaged their fiscal affairs. While European partners see Germany as a powerhouse of productivity with enviable, competitive export companies, the debate over the future here centers on an aging, shrinking population and the rising deficits that a smaller, older population will have to pay off.

In particular, the country’s municipal governments are heavily indebted. A recent study found that one in every 10 museums or other cultural institutions may be forced to close by 2020, as public funding is cut back.

“The crisis woke people up and led them to ask critical questions,” said Ulla Röbke, 65, a Bavarian homemaker. “We can’t support other countries when we have so many debts of our own.”

When France’s economic minister suggested earlier this year that Germany could try to promote consumer spending to support its struggling neighbors, her German counterpart shot back that countries that had lived “beyond their means” should not “point the finger.” Another leading conservative politician declared that “jealousy cannot be a factor in politics between European neighbors.”

A significant generational shift has taken place as the World War II generation has been dying off. For younger Germans, war in Europe is no longer a palpable memory or a tangible fear. In Mrs. Merkel’s cabinet today, only one minister was born before the end of the war. Three were born in the 1970s.

As head of the youth organization of Mrs. Merkel’s party, Philipp Missfelder, 31, is a leading member of the rising generation of German politicians. In an interview last week, he named not France or Poland but China and its neighbors as the most important countries for Germany’s future, and lamented that the European Union required so many summit meetings that Mrs. Merkel “barely has the chance” to take longer trips to East Asia to build up ties there.

Mr. Missfelder said the broader change in national pride was on display on a recent visit to a kindergarten where the children sang the national anthem, which “never would have happened” when he was growing up. But that confidence did not extend to the country’s future, because the German public was concerned about debt and rising inequality at home.

“People are afraid; the economy is booming but the wages aren’t rising,” Mr. Missfelder said, even though in the fall workers will have to start paying more for their health care. “The participation in prosperity is smaller.”

Need Amid Plenty

With its busy container port and noble lakefront properties, Hamburg is home to the highest proportion of millionaires in Germany. But there, in a basement cluttered with unused street signs, Horst and Angelika Matzen hand out donated computers to welfare recipients. On a recent afternoon a mother and her 6-year-old son picked one out, as did a former carpenter who had sawed off his left index finger in a work accident and was in the midst of retraining.

“The better our undertaking goes, the more it shows that father state isn’t taking care of people,” said Mr. Matzen, 58, who with his white beard looks the part for his role as Santa Claus. He and his wife know the hardship faced by their beneficiaries, because they are also living on the welfare system.

Mrs. Matzen, 53, worked for 33 years as an architectural draftswoman but said she faced age discrimination in her search for a new job. “There are a lot of forgotten people in this country.”

The fraying of the safety net troubles Germans deeply, in part because it is so deeply embedded in the country’s culture. The roots of their welfare state stretch all the way back to the 1880s, when under the Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, Germany introduced health insurance, accident insurance and old-age and invalid pensions.

The number of people on the welfare program known as Hartz IV has remained stubbornly stuck at around 6.7 million people out of a population of 82 million. New jobs are lower paying and less secure. A study released in July found that the number of low-wage workers in Germany rose consistently from 1998 to 2008, to 6.6 million from 4.3 million. The number of temporary workers, just over 100,000 at the beginning of 1990, peaked at over 800,000 before the financial crisis.

German taxpayers already had to bear the burden of reunification, with the country spending by some estimates $2 trillion to rebuild East Germany. The fruits of that nation-building at home are increasingly visible, not just in the renovated splendors of historic cities like Leipzig and Dresden, but in the long moribund job market. From a high of 20.8 percent in February 2005, unemployment in the former East Germany fell to 11.5 percent by August 2010.

Growing Pride

Before 1989, Tino Petsch was a disc jockey in Karl-Marx-Stadt, creating light shows for his performances on his domestically produced KC 85/3 personal computer. Today the city has returned to its historic name of Chemnitz, and Mr. Petsch, 43, is the chief executive of his own high-tech company there, 3D-Micromac, producing work stations for laser-micromachining.

“I see as many differences between North and South as I do between East and West,” said Mr. Petsch, who finds discussions of reunification 20 years after the fact passé. Germany enjoys a stellar reputation among businessmen in growing markets like India, China or Brazil, which prize “made in Germany” and Beethoven but do not share Europe’s memories of the war. “When I’m overseas, I hear all the time that we should take more pride in our nation,” he said.

That process is gaining speed. The railway company Deutsche Bahn promised earlier this year to change its signs after a former school principal complained to his local member of Parliament about the use of English-language terms like “hot line,” “service point” and “kiss and ride.” Between 2000 and 2009, the share of German-produced acts in the Top 100 album charts rose to 36.7 percent from 19.5 percent.

Despite the uproar over integration, the country celebrated as one over its soccer team’s surprise success this past summer. The players’ ethnic backgrounds spanned from Brazil to Poland to Tunisia, including the young German star Mesut Özil, whose family comes from Turkey, Germany’s largest source of immigrants.

“I told my Turkish barber that I thought Argentina was going to beat Germany,” said Shayan Parvand, 35, a Hamburg businessman and one of the 16 million people in Germany with what is known here as a migration background. “He got really mad at me, and said, ‘Özil is going to shoot a goal.’ ”

Mr. Parvand’s family could well represent the proud but complex new Germany. He was born in Iran and his wife grew up in the former East; they have a 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son.

“I said to my wife recently that I’d like to build a house,” Mr. Parvand said, “and get one of those German flags to go with it.”

[pieter]

If you replace the name Germany by France or Great-Britain with their Colonial pasts, racist elements in that, and their deminished roles in the world due to the fact that they were replaced as powers, by the USA and the SovjetUnion/Russia, then this story could be a European phenomenon. In France you had powerful organisations like Front National and in Great Britain the British National Party and the UK Independance party. Xenophobia, racism, Islamophobia and anti-semitism are wide spread in France and Great-Britain.

The differance indeed was that for decades Germans were ashamed of their recent past and in a way were pariahs abroad and treated with hostility in some European nations. Poland was one of them, but not the only one. Everything what happened in Germany was watched very closely in other European nations. German politics in Bonn and Berlin were very closely monitored in the other European capitals and the foreign embassies. The German society, economy, social events were watched closely by the European media. Far right demonstrations, the racist attacks in Sollingen, Kiel, Hoyerswerda and other places.

In Germany today, there is an undercurrent of xenophobia in public opinion and an open emphasis on xenophobia in right-wing and neo-Nazi organisations. For Turks in German society, patterns of discrimination maintain disadvantages of low economic and social status, whilst also restraining social advancement. Despite their long-term residency, Turks continue to face hostility, which has intensified since the mid 1970s. The wave of xenophobic violence that saw offences treble between 1991 and 1993, claimed several Turkish lives and revealed how excluded and vulnerable non-Germans have remained in German society.

The number of violent acts by right-wing extremists in Germany increased dramatically between 1990 and 1992. On November 25, 1992, three Turkish residents were killed in a firebombing in Mölln (Western Germany). The attack prompted even further perplexity since the victims were neither refugees nor lived in a hostel. The same was true for the incident in a Westphalian town on May 29, 1993; where another arson attack took place in Solingen on a Turkish family that had resided in Germany for twenty-three years, five of whom were burnt to death. Several neighbours heard someone shout Heil Hitler! before dousing the front porch and door with gasoline and setting the fire to the home. However, most Germans condemned these attacks on foreigners and many marched in candlelight processions.

Foreign Kurd and Armenian terrorists have also attacked the Turkish community in German streets.

Author Greg Nees, writing in 2000, stated that "Because Turks are both darker-skinned and Muslim, conservative Germans are largely against granting them citizenship."

[karl]

It is my belief of a certain amount of over play is apparent here. For we have always with our identity, we do not need some one to tell us of what I/we know.

What we need is answers. For the plate is full at this time with issues both as economic and both as social impact of immigrants with diverse religion, ethics and expectations. With this also as a weight to bear. We have political leadership that are wringing their hands and crying over what should be their responsibility to act upon.

The bubble has burst, not just with the Americans, but with us {Germany}. It is no longer party time, we no longer have the option to play in the sand box and giggle over nonsense. For the foundation of the house of cards, has folded and needs rebuilt with solid ground in the economic area.

What this means is: Export is the key to gaining ground in economics. It is income. The storage facilities held at the docks of Hamburg is gathering dust, instead of shipment to customers.

Our factories operate on need generated by research and development, and product design. Good is not enough, better is a word for losers, best is the mark to climb for, and needs be the standard to keep.

It is rather ludicrous of some to propose we are rich, for this is laughable to the ridicules. It is simply a matter of economics, control of spending is simple and nonsense. What is important and a controlling factor of debt, is the control of debt. The red ink upon a given ledger is misleading, for this in self is redundant. For debt is the measure of spending or cost, for what ever. It is debt as a measure of economic trail that is left with passage of business economics. For this is real and present to the activity of sales and purchase. For then it becomes a measurable trail for credit rating. For as the success of a given firm is measured by the credit rating it has generated, so as of national governments.

For as in government in-as of most any given firm. There is a time delay between manufactured goods/services are delivered to the customers, to time of payment. Within this time, is a dead zone, and as so, bills/vendors/employees and related cost, must be payed. This is the area of importance of credit rating comes into being. For the better of credit rating, the more economical the carry over loan will cost.

There is a vast difference between business on the private sector and that of government. Both produce a product that is needed. Government provides services, private industry provides both services and product. The difference is the manner of income.

Private industry pays taxes to government. Government collects taxes as income. But, government pays not of taxes. Private industry pays taxes..

But, to return to the topic of identity. Yes of course, most of us know what we are, and most important, where we have been. And in this matter, it has taken a great many years to over come the identity of where we have been.

Karl

[pieter]

I have to be honest and also talk about the other side of the coin, and that is the fact that there is not only xenofobia, discrimination and racism directed against foreigners, but against Germans as well, by migrants who discriminate or intimidate Germans in certain area's of larger German cities. In places where they form the majority for instance. The agressive, militant and violent behavior of some of these Muslim migrant groups of Turkish and Arab heritage is simular as the Neo-Nazi intimidation of migrants in for instance.

[karl]

Sept 12, 2010 10:56:54 GMT -7 pieter said:

I have to be honest and also talk about the other side of the coin, and that is the fact that there is not only xenofobia, discrimination and racism directed against foreigners, but against Germans as well, by migrants who discriminate or intimidate Germans in certain area's of larger German cities. In places where they form the majority for instance. The agressive, militant and violent behavior of some of these Muslim migrant groups of Turkish and Arab heritage is simular as the Neo-Nazi intimidation of migrants in for instance.

Pieter

It is just as well you have brought this out into the open, I was to leave it as unplowed ground.

As you have described, is the open sore that keeps being hidden for various reasons. One reason, if this becomes a public issue, then it must then be acted upon. For then, public safety is then at risk.

In past issues involving members of the NPD radicals. With the expected street scuffles. It was very common for the Polizei to immediately cordoned the area for non enter/ non exit. Load up the individuals for transfer out of the area, for then release.

But, as you see, that which we are speaking of, is much different. For these new radicals are playing with fire and the clock is ticking. The clock hammer will be released by the far right primarily the NPD {Nationalaldemokratische Partie Deutschland}. These people have legalized them selves as now a part of government.

For as a result, if, a number of their membership {sworn individuals of the party} become involved in this street brawling and/or German National Citizens are injured or placed at risk, then their is no choice but for police intervention. This would be at ground level.

At present, there are in workings, legal means to remove the currant power held by the NPD, for they are a legal recognized political organization. Then into the courts. For once the legal briefs are filed, then as would/should be expected, there will be an injunction filed for stop action. These to provide time for proper legal preparations to be instilled.

It is a problem both for public safety, and time needs be for preparation of resolution to the NPD question. The people that will lose, will be the Islamic Innocent families, for as if this situation becomes volatile, it may mean deportations to be in order as an extreme measure. We are only speaking in worse scenario case.

You might say: The difference to kill the chicken, wring its neck, or chop it. The end result is the same, just the difference in means.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Democratic_Party_of_Germany

Karl

[pieter]

A dangerous figure in the NPD was Horst Mahler. Because except their lawjer he was also one of the their ideological theorist, with a practical background of leftwing extremism, armed training and so militancy. The danger of the NPD and other far right parties is that they in contrast with the past merge a far right ideology, with extreme leftwing ideas and rightwing populism. The NPD uses DDR stile, Prussian Marxist ideology and merges it with a disguised active Neo-Nazism with a so called 'moderate' decent face. Young NPD members participated, participate and are member of Neo-Nazi organisations like Fronbahn, . The NPD's succesors were the Deutsche Reichspartei (German Reich Party, German Imperial Party or German Empire Party), a nationalist political party in West Germany. It was founded in 1950 from the German Right Party (Deutsche Rechtspartei), which had been set up in Lower Saxony in 1946 and had five members in the first Bundestag. Under whom the warcriminal and Luftwaffe commander Alexander Andrae (1888 – 1979). Other known party members were SS-Sturmbannführer Erich Kernmayr, the national socialistist jurist Friedrich Grimm, the writer (Volk ohne Raum) Hans Grimm, and the Luftwaffenoberst a.D. Hans-Ulrich Rudel, who was the frontrunner (top candidate) for the party in the Bundestagswahlkampf (elections) of 1953 and the publisher Karl Waldemar Schütz. The DRP was a gathering organisation for former NSDAP-members and represented the interests of former Wehrmacht soldiers and officers.

In 1949 the Socialist Reich Party split away from it, as the Empire Party was not at that point neo-Nazi, and preferred to distance itself from Adolf Hitler. Instead it preferred to exalt Imperial Germany (1870-1919). The party, however, moved more or less towards a national socialist way in 1952, when the SRP was declared anti-constitutional and disbanded by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany and much of its membership re-joined the Empire Party. The membership of Hans-Ulrich Rudel in 1953 was seen as marking out the party as the new force of neo-Nazism.

Despite this the party suffered through a lean period in the 1950s, which continued until a revival in the regional elections of 1959. By then, however the Empire party was already in the process of going out of existence, as its chairman Adolf von Thadden wanted to form a broader-based political force of socialists, nationalists and non-reactionary, non-religious conservatives. The party held its final conference in 1964 when it was symbolically dissolved. It was quickly replaced by the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD). So you could say the roots and grassrootsmovement of the NPD is 64 years old. The NPD has in that a solid foundation. In the same time the NPD moved with it's past, monitored both West-Germany and East-Germany closely, and had a furtile ground in East-Germany after the collapse of the DDR, and the mass unemployment, apathy and despair in that region of Germany with it's xenofobia, progroms against foreigners, and things like 'National Befreite zonen' (National cleared area's. Area's in which the gangs of the NPD Skinheads and Hooligans ruled by a mix of intimidation and militant presence. These area's in East-Germany which were dominated by the far right were dangerous places for foreigners -especially black, Indian, or Non-German people in general, and clearly leftwing people and homosexuals-). In that way they become more popular and attractive to youth, German working class and other Germans. Their modern approach, communication, stile (design, stile and dresscode) and propaganda makes them a today movement.

Horst Mahler


1969 - The brilliant lawyer Horst Mahler begins to explore way to turn his socialist theories into "praxis." His plan: to start an Urban Guerrilla group modeled after Uruguay's Tupamaros.

Horst Mahler (born 23 January 1936 in Haynau, Lower Silesia, Germany, now Chojnów, Poland) is a former German lawyer and advocate of radical ideologies. He once was an extreme-left militant, a founding member of the Red Army Faction. Subsequently he became a Maoist and later shifted to the extreme-right. He was for a time a member of the National Democratic Party of Germany.



Life

He is known for his lifelong advocacy of radical politics. He has been convicted of Volksverhetzung and Holocaust denial.

Mahler became known as a founding member of the radical leftist „Baader-Meinhof-Gruppe“, better know as the Red Army Faction in 1970. While imprisoned he became a Maoist, but later turned sharply to the right. In 2000 he joined the NPD and represented the party in court.

In an interview to an Israeli reporter, Naftali Glicksberg, Mahler claimed that he himself is of part Jewish descent. He described his mother telling him and his brothers while bursting into tears that they have Jewish ancestry and are actually 1/8 Jewish.

Education and career

Mahler studied law at the Free University of Berlin with support of the German National Merit Foundation. In 1964 he founded a law firm in Berlin and practised microeconomic law. In 1966 he successfully argued a case before the European Court of Human Rights.

As a young lawyer, Mahler defended Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Rudi Dutschke.


Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin from the Rote Armee Fraction


Rudi Dutschke at a Vietnam Congress (February 17, 1968)

Leftist activity

Early political activism

Prior to 1960, Mahler was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and the leftist students' association Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund. He was expelled from the SPD in 1960, as were other members of the SDS, that had developed from being the SPD youth wing to a radical left-wing group. He joined the new organisation's call for "extra-parliamentary opposition", or forceful resistance Mahler joined the Ausserparlamentarische Opposition in 1964.

After the attempted assassination of Rudi Dutschke, Mahler took part in the violent protests against Springer Publishing House. He was arrested for his involvement. At that time, Mahler was active as a lawyer who defended students who faced criminal prosecution. By 1970 he had defended Beate Klarsfeld, Fritz Teufel and Rainer Langhans (both participants of the Kommune 1), the left-wing student leader Rudi Dutschke, Peter Brandt (the eldest son of Willy Brandt), as well as subsequent RAF terrorists Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin.


Beate and Serge Klarsfeld


Fritz Teufel (M) spricht 1967 in Frankfurt am Main bei einer Sitzdemonstration vor dem Polizeipräsidium.


Rainer Langhans und Fritz Teufel im Jahr 1968 (Bild: AP Archiv)

Founding of the RAF


RAF logo

Having earlier befriended Ensslin and Baader, Mahler helped plot to spring Baader from prison after his 1970 arrest. Once Baader escaped, the three, along with Ulrike Meinhof, committed a series of bank robberies in September 1970. The four fled to Jordan and trained in guerrilla tactics with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.


Ulrike Meinhof

Upon his return from Jordan, Mahler was arrested with fellow RAF members Ingrid Schubert, Brigitte Asdonk, and Irene Goergens on 8 October 1970. He was tried and convicted for the bank robberies and for assisting a prison escape. By 1974, Mahler had been sentenced to 14 years imprisonment and had his license to practice law revoked.


Ingrid Schubert


Brigitte Asdonk


8 October 1970, Berlin - Irene Goergens (pictured here in police custody)

Imprisonment

Mahler penned a manifesto in prison. The rest of the Baader-Meinhof Group, however, resoundingly rejected it - effectively expelling him from the group. Mahler now advocated the policies of the Maoist KPD/AO. Then in 1975, the Movement 2 June took Peter Lorenz hostage and demanded, among others, that Mahler be freed from prison. Mahler was offered liberty, but refused it.


Entführter Peter Lorenz

In 1980 Mahler was freed from prison after serving 10 years of his 14-year sentence, largely due to the efforts of his lawyer, Gerhard Schröder (who would later become chancellor). He was granted permission to practise law again in Germany in 1988, again with the help of Schröder.

Change to far-right politics

Beginning of right-wing politics

Mahler made the acquaintance of political theorists Iring Fetscher and Günter Rohrmoser, who visited him in prison. While the German courts noted a change in Mahler's political posturing in the mid 1980s, he first gained attention for it at Rohrmoser's 70th birthday celebration on 1 December 1997. There Mahler gave a speech declaring that Germany was "occupied" and had to free itself from its "debt bondage" to reestablish its national identity.


Political theorists, Iring Fetscher


Der konservative Philosoph Günter Rohrmoser

Mahler took little role in politics until an article called Zweite Steinzeit (Second Stone Age) by him appeared in the right wing paper Junge Freiheit in 1998, explaining his conversion to Völkisch ideas. Mahler has since underlined the spiritual side of his political beliefs, whilst marrying this to anti-Semitism, arguing that:

"In the German people as free self-confidence, the unity of God and Man appears in the Folk-community knowing itself. This is the existing negation of the Jewish Principle and of the haggler/bargainer as its worldly shape."

NPD



Mahler joined the National Democratic Party of Germany (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands, or NPD), an extreme nationalist party, in 2000.

The German government began a process to attempt to ban the NPD in 2001. Mahler was an attorney for the party at the time. The government, citing accusations of Volksverhetzung (Germany's hate speech law) against the party, petitioned the court to allow them to seize Mahler's computer assets. Mahler successfully defeated the effort.

In 2003, after the official case to ban the NPD had been rejected by the German courts, he left the party.

Recent activities

Mahler was involved in founding the Society for the Rehabilitation of Those persecuted for Refutation of the Holocaust (Verein zur Rehabilitierung der wegen Bestreitens des Holocaust Verfolgten or VRBHV) on 9 November 2003, or Schicksalstag. Mahler announced the society with an open letter in which he stated that the objective of the group was "to eliminate the isolation of the persecuted which has dominated so far, is to guarantee the necessary public awareness of their struggle for justice, and is to provide the financial means for a successful judicial struggle."

Mahler has faced numerous charges in German courts. In 2003 he was also charged with Volksverhetzung in connection with statements he made regarding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States -- he told the court that the incident was a concocted conspiracy and "it is not true that al-Qaeda had anything to do with it." He was also charged for Holocaust denial under the Volksverhetzung law in 2004 in connection with his role in the VRBHV. In 2006 his passport was revoked by the German authorities to prevent him from attending the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust in Tehran, Iran, a conference identified with Holocaust denial.

As of November 2007, Mahler was facing new charges for Volksverhetzung. The charges stem from an interview for Vanity Fair with Michel Friedman (CDU), former vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany. Friedman, who intended to interview Mahler about his role in the RAF, brought charges against Mahler alleging that he was greeted with a Hitler salute and a shout of "Heil Hitler, Herr Friedman!" During the interview, Mahler told Friedman that "the systematic extermination of Jews in Auschwitz is a lie," and Adolf Hitler was "the savior of the German people [but] not only of the German people.”

On November 23, 2007, the Amtsgericht Cottbus sentenced Mahler to six months of imprisonment without parole for having according to his own claims "ironically" performed the Hitler salute when reporting to prison for a nine-month term a year earlier.

On February 21, 2009 Mahler was sentenced to six years imprisonment without possibility at reduction or bail, by a Munich court of justice; during the verdict the judge said that Mahler had proven "not able to be re-educated" and declared that he as a judge should stop the "nationalist rattle" and "nonsense spread" by Horst Mahler. On March 11 a Potsdam Court sentenced 73 year old Horst Mahler to additional five years imprisonment for Holocaust denial and banalization of Nazi war crimes, due to the perceived danger of an escape attempt, the sentence was to be immediately carried out. It is expected that Mahler will appeal the verdicts.

On March 19, 2009 Mahler's wife, the former university teacher and lawyer Sylvia Stolz, was also convicted and imprisoned for Holocaust denial, and for her claims that a "Jewish foreign power" ruled the German federal authorities and the Western world, and for claiming that the federal German courts practised "Allied victors' justice" by limiting free speech.

Quotes

"The destruction of Jews is an act of reason... Billions of people would be ready to forgive Hitler if only he had committed the murder of the Jews" ("In der Vernichtung der Juden waltet Vernunft...Milliarden Menschen wären bereit, Hitler zu verzeihen, wenn er nur den Judenmord begangen hätte").
One of the comments made by Horst Mahler that the local court of justice of Berlin-Tiergarten (Amtsgericht Tiergarten) used to justify the prohibition of professional activity (Berufsverbot) it issued against Mahler on 8 April 2004.

I have to say that the far right movement in Germany is not limited to the NPD party, because you have also the Deutsche VolksUnion (DVU) and the Republicans,
and the far right wing of the Ultra-conservative Christian-democratic Bavarian party the CSU. The CSU is not a fascist or neo-nazi organisation itself, because it is a democratic, conservative German party, who rules and ruled Bavaria succesful for decades.

www.npd.de/ (look at the far left, Autonomen layout of the Sarazin hat regt add. The red and black is the color of the anarchist autonomen which the far right adabted. The Neo-Nazi marches even look like far left marches)
www.rep.de/
www.die-rechte.info/

[pieter]

The Republicans (Germany)

The Republicans (German: Die Republikaner; REP) are a nationalist and national conservative political party in Germany. The primary plank of the program is opposition to immigration. The party tends to attract protest voters who think that the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU) are not sufficiently conservative. It was founded in 1983 by former CSU members Franz Handlos and Ekkehard Voigt, and Franz Schönhuber was at one time the party's leader. It is currently led by medical doctor Rolf Schlierer. In the 1980s the Republicans had several seats in the European Parliament as well as in the parliament of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. In Baden-Württemberg, the party has had seats until 2001. Currently they only attract between 1 and 2 percent of the vote in Bavaria, and approximately 3.5 percent in Baden-Württemberg, thus failing to reach the 5 percent necessary to win seats in their parliaments.

The Republicans are considered by many Germans to be far-right, but they do not see themselves that way. The German Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz observed the party from 1992 to 2006 and categorized it as extreme-right, however since 2006 it has not regarded REP as extremist. The avowedly extreme-right party National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) and the far-right German People's Union (DVU), both of which are more successful than the Republicans, have offered the Republicans a chance to join their electoral alliance, but the REP leaders refused any cooperation with any openly extreme-right parties. However, Kerstin Lorenz, a local leader of the REP sabotaged her own party's registration for the Saxony state elections, to the benefit of the NPD. After that election, the party lost extreme-right members to the DVU and NPD. The strongholds for the Republicans are different from the more radical parties, with the former being strongest in the relatively affluent south Germany whilst the latter have had most success in the more economically depressed eastern Germany.

In the 2005 federal elections, the REP received 0.6 percent of the total votes cast nationally. Its strongest showing was in the states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg. In each of these states, the Republicans received 1.1 percent of the vote.

[pieter]

German People's Union

The German People's Union (German: Deutsche Volksunion, DVU) is a nationalist political party in Germany. It was founded by publisher Gerhard Frey as an informal association in 1971 and established as a party in 1987. Financially, it is largely dependent on Frey.

As of 2010[update], the party has never reached the five-percent minimum in federal elections that is generally necessary to enter the Bundestag. The DVU has however gained seats in several state parliaments.



In 2004, the DVU entered a non-competition agreement with the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) for the state elections in Brandenburg and Saxony. Both parties passed the five-percent threshold in their respective states. The DVU reached 6.1 percent in the Brandenburg state elections, and the NPD won 9.2 percent in the Saxony state elections. After this relatively successful election, the parties formed an electoral alliance for the 2005 federal elections. The joint NPD-DVU slate, which ran under the NPD's ballot line, won 1.6 percent of the total votes nationally.

[Nictoshek]

Now who could forget the infamous Baader-Meinhof-Gruppe ? Lot of history there pieter.

[pieter]

Right-Wing Extremism | 29.07.2010
Far-right NPD ups ante with media offensive in eastern German state


NPD supporters attempt to stage rallies in cities around Germany

Five new newspapers have gone into print in the eastern state of Thuringia with the aim of furthering the far-right. The much-maligned National Democratic Party, widely seen as a neo-Nazi group, is behind the move.

Far-right nationalists in the German state of Thuringia are seeking to reach a wider audience by founding five new newspapers in the region. The worrying move by the National Democratic Party (NPD) is aimed at capturing more voters.

The publications purport to address regional issues, running headlines such as "Is Erfurt broke?", "Venturing more democracy," and "Schools are the future." But behind this veneer of seemingly harmless headlines lies the NPD's true agenda.

"The NPD's ideology is communicated above all else in these articles," said Stefan Heerdegen of the Mobile Council in Thuringia for Democracy - Against Right-wing Extremism, based in the state's capital, Erfurt.

"There is always a hostility towards democracy being piggybacked [in these stories]," said Heerdegen.

The NPD is the official political arm of the right-wing neo-Nazi movement in Germany. It is often involved in far-right extremist marches and is widely opposed throughout the country. There have been numerous attempts to have it banned from German politics.

Its existence is permitted through somewhat of a legal loophole. The party is allowed to operate because its founding documents pledge allegiance to the German constitution, unlike other far-right and far-left parties that have been banned.

Racist messages


Cities regularly try to have NPD rallies banned

Stefan Kausch, a political scientist who works with the Forum for Critical Research of Right-wing Extremism, said "the topics of the articles are connected with the party's objectives - racist ideologies are repeatedly conveyed."

An example of this is given in an NPD article on municipal finances:

"Instead of prescribing to the protection of identity, sovereignty and solidarity of Germans," the article reads, "The anti-German political cartel instigates a well-planned policy [serving the] interests of foreigners, foreign countries and high finance."

Heerdegen says the far-right party is trying to use the new publications to position itself as the lone voice of political opposition in Germany.

"And so these are NPD newspapers, not true newspapers in the sense of journalistic seriousness," he said.

New take, old idea

Publishing regional newspapers is not new for the far-right. Since 2001, publications such as the Inselboten, a regional paper in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, have been in print. The state's largest city, Rostock, is home to the right-wing Rostocker Boten, while a far-right newspaper can also be found in the city of Trier, in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.


Wieschke says the NPD papers try to focus on local issues

Pre-election periods usually see an increase in the number of these far-right publications. "We have also noticed this [in the eastern city of] Leipzig," said Kausch. "However, these publications don't last."

Two exceptions to the short-lived nature of many right-wing newspapers are the Wartburgkreisbote and Der Rennsteigbote in Thuringia. In its 14th edition the former printed 22,000 copies, according to the NPD District Council Chairman and the paper's publisher, Patrick Wieschke.

"The new regional papers are financed in mixed ways," said Wieschke. The lion's share comes from the NPD's associations at the state level, but local groups must also pay up, he says.


Patrick Wieschke

Parliamentary push

The NPD in Thuringia wants to use its five new publications to strengthen its grass-roots movement and create the conditions for entry to state parliament in 2014, says Wieschke. In 2009, the party only marginally failed to garner the 5 percent of votes needed for representation.

The right-wing party says it wants to appeal to common voters by focusing on local issues in the hope this will demonstrate some kind of capacity to serve communities.

The front and back sheets of the four-page publications attempt to deal with local issues and differ from paper to paper. The inner two pages, however, are identical in each of the five publications.

Most Germans still view the NPD as embodying the neo-Nazi movement, and the new publications are unlikely to sway voters from these firmly held positions.

Author: Jan Schilling/dfm
Editor: Martin Kuebler

[pieter]

Xenophobia: Germany Still Has Trouble Countering Neo-Nazis



Followers of Germany's neo-Nazi NPD party wave a black flag during May Day demonstrations in Berlin's Koepenick district on May 1, 2009.

June 06, 2009
By Bernd Volkert

The slogans are turning up at neo-Nazi rallies all over Germany: "Germany for Germans!" "This is national resistance on the march!" "USA: global genocidal headquarters!"

Frequent demonstrations attracting thousands of radical supporters of extreme nationalism or a revival of National Socialism in Germany have become a feature of right-wing extremism in Germany.

But the phenomenon can be perceived on more than the political plane; it appears to permeate German society on several levels.

According to an annual report published in May by Germany's federal office for the protection of the constitution, 30,000 Germans consider themselves to have extreme right-wing views; nearly 5,000 are militant neo-Nazis.

The report also says 2008 saw 20,000 right-wing criminal offenses and -- most distressingly -- more than 1,000 violent crimes, including at least two hate-related murders. That figure marks a 5 percent rise over 2007.

To some, the statistics are alarming enough.

But antiracism activist Timo Reinfrank is even more worried by the lack of response from the government. "What appalls us is the air of normality in which these facts are registered, year after year, with no adequate reaction," Reinfrank says. "The murders which appear in this year's report -- for the first time since 2004 -- indicate how dramatic this rise in right-wing extremist violence has become."

Generalized Into Oblivion

Discussions about neo-Nazism are not new in Germany. The country has seen several waves of anti-xenophobia initiatives since reunification, when it witnessed a spectacular rise in violent attacks on immigrants, refugees, and citizens of ethnic Turkish origin.

But despite Germany's reputation as a country bound by law and frequent declarations of its commitment to civil liberties and human rights, critics say governments of the last 20 years have been inconsistent in their attempts to eradicate the sources of racism and neo-Nazi violence.

Now, with a mounting economic crisis and other social woes, some fear it may be too late for Germany to prevent a resurrection of the far right in parts of the country.

Germany's interior minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, has offered a sunnier outlook, saying he is "highly pleased" that the economic downturn hasn't resulted in wholesale defections to the extremist camp.


Interior minister Wolfgang Schaeuble

That has done little to ease the concerns of critics who are calling on the government to produce a comprehensive strategy against neo-Nazism.

Oliver Decker, a Frankfurt psychologist specializing in right-wing extremism, says many in Germany's political mainstream continue to address the problem only in sweeping generalities.

"There's a possible problem in democratic parties that are 'relativizing' the problem -- by falling back on classic labels like 'extremism,' for example," Decker says. "In doing so, they are obfuscating the very massive problem that actually exists on the right."

'No Go' Areas

Under Christian Democrat Helmut Kohl, who served as chancellor of unified Germany from 1990-98, the government addressed rising xenophobia by banning a number of far-right organizations and -- controversially even if supported by the opposition Social Democratic Party at the time -- strengthening restrictions on political asylum cases.

That move, critics complained, appeared to legitimate right-wing concerns about "ueberfremdung," or foreign infiltration. And in fact, neo-Nazism continued to thrive in the new Germany, evading fresh laws and restrictions by adapting the ways they organized.

Loose networks of militants calling themselves "autonomous nationalists" sought subculture status and street-level domination rather than elected office or influence within mainstream society.

To some extent, they succeeded. In smaller towns and the countryside -- mainly in the country's east, which still remained economically weak -- neo-Nazis concentrated their attacks on immigrants and antifascist activists.

They frequently managed to establish what they called "nationally liberated zones" -- an allusion to the Third Reich's aspirations of a "judenfreies" Germany, a German reich free of Jews.

Reinfrank says the existence of such zones throws into doubt Germany's domestic security and the long-held principle of "the state's monopoly on the legitimate use of violence" that is at the core of the German definition of statehood.

"Especially in east German regions, but also in some rural regions in west Germany, there are some so-called no-go areas, where people who don't fit into the Aryan-German world view can't travel to -- that applies to punks, leftists, skaters, immigrants, and gays and lesbians," Reinfrank says. "In the meantime, right-wing extremists are increasingly attacking conventional democratic parties and their activists, or anyone standing in their way in one sense or another."

At the same time, far-right parties have successfully made inroads into mainstream politics on the local and regional levels. Throughout Germany, such groups are prevailing in places where they don't meet any clear opposition from the majority.

In some instances, mainstream officials have even chosen to cooperate with their far-right opponents, arguing that the groups can come together on issues of common practical concern rather than getting bogged down in ideological stalemates.

That has been the case particularly in the former East Germany, where fewer people feel a strong connection to the country's mainstream parties and where a shaky economic landscape and widespread feeling of disillusionment with the political system have left many residents feeling like second-class citizens.

Civil Society As A Counterstrategy

Decker warns against seeing neo-Nazism as a problem that is exclusive to the east, however.

"As to the [public] attitudes, the East-West comparison is only of limited value," he says. "We have to look very precisely at the various situations and social milieu in order to understand what's happening there."

For years, there have been calls for action to address those milieus and for civil-society initiatives that could help counter the neo-Nazi movement.

After a fresh wave of violent attacks in 2000, the government declared a "revolt of the decent," prompting antifascist protests and subsidies for grassroots organizations in neo-Nazi strongholds of the country.

But critics say the time horizons of those programs were limited, follow-up subsidies scarce, and the effects minimal as a result.

Reinfrank, who serves as the managing director of the Amadeo Antonio Foundation, which gives support to local antiracism groups, laments that there are parts of Germany where extremism has come to be accepted as more normal than the opposition to it.

He fears the chance to drive back neo-Nazism may have already been missed. Any real solution, he says, will have to be broad and long-term -- and must see a return of average citizens to everyday social affairs, like volunteer work and civil services, that have been co-opted by the right.

"You already have a rightist civil society, neo-Nazi grassroots organizations, working very concretely at the spot. Combine that with the structural weaknesses of the East German regions, or rural areas in the west, and they're taking over very basic tasks, like tutoring school kids, doing youth work, engaging in voluntary fire brigades," Reinfrank says. "People think, 'Those are the guys that care for us; they're our caretakers.' Ideally, these were the kinds of tasks in which the democrats engaged."

[karl]

Pieter

You carry the penchant of striking the nail upon the head with every blow, very excellent work!!

Yes, there is a present situation with the NPD. They have mutated in operational methodology, and very successfully...For this is the problem, they are good at what they do.

If to take these people at issue, is creating a situation, for they are several steps infront of Government. For they have formed alliances with the mind set of people of every day life, and related issues we are all aware of. Then they use these issues as the back bone of their manner of resolution. And as whilst of this, make the representatives of Federal, look like idiots.

There are some very insidious situations of issues that are brewing upon the back burner.

One} The representatives of the NPD are part and partial to public concerns. For they are close to the mind set of the public.

Two} With the above. The NPD member ship, know the mechanics in methodology of mass psychology. And they are using this tool of manipulation.

Three} They as good viruses, have mutated into new knowledge and self protection with use of law.

Four} They are attempting {at this time} to insure indoctrination of the new generation of German Nationals at the ground level, in infiltration the Kindergarten school in teaching and care given.

It as of a malevolent cancer. WE will not hurt you, but we are taken over your body.

For how do you over come a half truth?

Karl

[pieter]

Karlfried Knapp (Erfurt)

What's German? Remarks on German Identity

Some fundamental determinants


Martin Luther (1483 – 1546)

According to present currents in anthropology, a culture can best be described as a system of knowledge shared by its members (Keesing 1974). Such a system is broadly determined by the global views and values rooted in the history of ideas of the respective community. One important area of this history is the development of the prevailing ideology. This is true, of course, also of the German culture, and in fact it can be said that religion is historically the first and by far the most influential factor in shaping German identity. However, it is not Christian Occident that matters here; an origin it shares with all other Western cultures. Rather, it is the impact of the Reformation, particularly of Lutheran protestantism.

The Reformation exerted an important influence on many European cultures. However, its results were different according to whether it was the Lutheran or the Calvinist version. There are fundamental differences between these two, differences that explain many cultural distinctions, especially between Anglo-Saxon and the German culture (Weber 1920/1972; Troeltsch 1925).

In Calvinist Protestantism, the individual is expected to participate in the shaping of the social world around him or her. By contrast, in Lutheran Protestantism there is a separation of public administration and the church from the individual's private inwardness and spirituality. This contrast can be traced back to the biographies of these two religious founders. While Calvin, as a free citizen of Geneva exerted an active influence on the development of his community, the monk Luther sought refuge with his sovereign against persecution by the Pope. Luther's version of Protestantism did not spread because of the individual's conviction, but as a result of the protection of the respective sovereign on the basis of the principle "cuius regio, eius religio", a principle founded in the Treaty of Westphalia, 1648, at the end of the thirty year war. Where Calvinist communities put up religious freedom as part of political rule, Luther legitimised political rule as God-given and therefore not to be questioned by any subject.

Luther made a distinction between the two dominions ("die zwei Königreiche") which an individual is subjected to: the political, which is a matter of the state; and the spiritual, which is reserved for God. For Luther, the political dominion, the rule of the sovereign, was set up by God to control and overcome human imperfection by the force of the state. Therefore, subjects owed gratitude and obedience to the sovereign. Only where worldly authority obviously offended against God's commandments, were subjects allowed to withdraw their allegiance. This could never lead to open restistance, since this might destroy God-given political rule altogether. The only form of worldly disobedience permitted was either to point out to the sovereign his offences, or to flee from him. For Luther, the freedom of a Christian was a spiritual, inner freedom, a belief in God, not a set of civil rights. This freedom required a being to follow the Lord's commandments and to abide by worldy laws. As a consequence, and different from Calvinism, the ideas of an independent citizen, acting on his or her own responsibility, as well as of a political community as a union of free individuals, could never develop. Under this line of reasoning, political legislation has always remained the task of the feudal sovereign or of the state only.

Luther's concept of job or profession had the same effect. To him, having work was not an obligation to change and form the material and social world according to the divine commandments, but the calling for a place in a given corporative structure predetermined by tradition. In this case, it was performance of one's duty and obedience to the existing norms of the professional environment and to the laws of the state only that mattered. Quite obviously, it is a very small step from here to what later became known as Prussian discipline and subservience.

This view of work as duty is in line with Luther's conception of private inwardness or spirituality, a conception of equal importance to the shaping of the German identity. To Luther, an individual does not realize him- or herself in external doings, by acting in the social sphere, but rather by an inner attitude that directs his or her way to God. It is not so much that acting properly leads to the Lord, but rather trust and belief in God. This attitude, this spiritual identity, has to have priority over mundane achievements. Personal identity is thus separated from society and the individual is neither responsible for society at large nor for his or her position in the social context. Against this background, it is does not come as a surprise that even today political participation in Germany is more a matter of duty than of personal involvement.

However, the influence of Lutheran protestantism would not have been that pervasive had it not been secularized by the German intellectual reaction to the enlightenment, especially in the form of German idealism. Idealism therefore has to be regarded as the second most important shaping force of the German identity.

This becomes especially obvious in the idealist view of the relation between the individual and the state (Krieger 1957). Thinkers like Kant and Hegel justified the state as being an institution of a higher moral status than a mere collective of individual beings. According to them and to their followers, the state had to grant freedom to the individual. Echoing Luther's ideas, in Kant's philosophy this freedom, however, was viewed first an foremost as an abstract inner freedom which in concrete dealings in the social sphere had to be realized by an adherence to the laws of the state. This inner freedom was equated to orienting oneself to the moral law from true practical reason which is universally valid and independent of sensual desires or the desire to achieve material advantages. But where an individual in his or her concrete actions deviates from true practical reason, he or she is forced to follow this reason by obeying the laws of the state. For Kant, this was more of a help on the way to moral perfection than a restriction of individual rights, because for him, the legislation of the state had itself to be based on the general principles of practical reason. Hence the laws of the state had to be most general and not geared towards individual cases; the state had an outstanding moral status, and, different from Anglo-Saxon thinking, the freedom of the individual did not need to be protected against any encroachments by the state, because it was implied in the general legislation.


Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804)

The special position attributed to the state is also evident in the views idealist thinkers had on education. In 1772, in his book "On the Origin of Language" ("Über den Ursprung der Sprache"), the philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder exposed the idea that a language expresses the collective experiences of the group of its speakers, thus breaking the way for German romantic linguistic nationalism. He also claimed that in analogy to naturalistic language acquisition and its concomitant acculturation, the creation of a national identity is a project of education. The foundation of the University in Berlin early in the 19th century, which was set up according to the ideas of idealistic reformers like Fichte, Schelling and von Humboldt, reflected the conviction that this education should be organized by the state. Being the prototype of the self-image of German universities until the sixties of this century, it was intended as a place of true education and culture for an elite, independent of practical needs of society, and from its beginning reflected the high preference among German intellectuals for philosophy and the humanities and their disdain for technical and more mundane subjects - an attitude which still is prevails today.


Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744 – 1803)


Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762 — 1814)


Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775 - 1854)


Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (1769 - 1859)

As a secular variant of Lutheran inwardness and spirituality, idealism lead to the search for universal and eternal truths, separated from the profane necessities and contingencies of everyday life and the rest of society. Again this can be demonstrated by the works of Kant and Hegel. They are typical in that they exhibit the highest level of abstraction possible, but that their theories - particularly in contrast to that of Anglo- Saxon philosphers of their time, e.g. Hobbes - are more or less empirically void. Due to his closer affinity to an empirical reality, it is true that Hobbes in his writings on the social contract can be caught in empirical contradictions. This could hardly happen to German idealist philosophers, because it is hard to imagine how their theories could ever be put into empirical practice. For example, it is hard to conceive that any human being, and even more a society, could live up to the moral standards set by the universal principles of true practical reason. To the German idealist, however, it is only the internal consistency of his theory that matters.


Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679)

The neglect of empirical contingencies together with the rigorism of thinking could therefore lead to the fact that an abstract humanistic universalism found to be theoretically true can - in its practical consequences, which are outside the idealist's consideration - be accompanied by a concrete inhumanity. A case in point here is Communism, which can be regarded as a continuation of Hegel's philosophy by Marx.


Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 – 1831)


Karl Heinrich Marx (1818 – 1883)

For German idealism, the search for universal and eternal truths is not a collective project. They can be found by an individual thinker only, concentrating on himself and his subject matter in seclusion and - as it was called - "heroic loneliness" of his study. A loneliness, in which the points of reference for the scholar were quite naturally the established great works of the titans of thinking of past millenia rather than the immature and incomplete thought of contemporary colleagues. This explains why the humanities in Germany are that much more oriented towards history than e.g. in Anglo-Saxon countries. Truths are not hypotheses you could discuss, let alone in public discourse. Truths have to be maintained with rigour. It is not intersubjectivity and critical evaluation by others that counts, but the conscience - convincingly and impressively presented - of being right. Therefore, the concept of a competition of ideas - instead of conflict of ideas - has long remained foreign to Germans, and a discussion culture did not develop. Also, this neglect of a public discourse has led to the well known lack of comprehensibility of German academic discourse, which makes the ideas presented accessible to a small group of initiated experts only, but at the same time increases the prestige of the expert in the rest of the society.

All this is also a reflection of the idealist assumption that a more advanced knowledge is accessible to a small, chosen elite only. From the beginning of the 19th century, this was the educated bourgeoisie, the "Bildungsbürgertum", which separated itself from other groups of society not so much on the basis of its economic position but rather on the basis of its education. This education, mirroring the idealistic ideas that led to the foundation of Berlin University, was humanistic, with an emphasis on philosophy, history and the classical languages. Humanistic training was offered at an elitist institution of secondary education: the "Gymnasium". Other, more practical forms of knowledge were taught at less prestigious types of schools. The status attributed to humanistic education becomes apparent, too, in that science and technology were not included into the idealist concept of culture and that - on the tertiary level of education - they were up to the middle of this century not taught at universities but at "Technische Hochschulen" or "Ingenieurschulen" - the very designations indicating their inferior reputation.

The most typical representative of the "Bildungsbürgertum" was the university professor. Apart from his education and his subject area in the humanities he was typical, too, in that he was a civil servant, since in Germany - with very few exceptions today - universities are run by the state. The bond of idealism and the Prussian state made the university professor the most important and most influential personification of the intellectual, with the consequence that intellectuals were acceptable in German society as civil servants only (even today most theatres, museums and other places of intellectual activity other than universities and institutions of higher education in Germany are run by the state). Being supported by the state, in the comfortable position of a public office the German professor did not need to care for his material subsistence, and was thus largely relieved from running the risk of being confronted with the empirical realities that might question the validity of his universal truths. On a lower social stratum, the same is true for the parson and the teacher, whose role it was - as more public opinion leaders - to transport the ideas of inwardness and obedience to the idealised state to the less educated classes.

Both through the ideology that resulted and by the persons it brought into important functions in society, idealism was affirmative for the state and the ruling castes. It is no surprise that quite independent from Prussian influence on German history the values and behaviours associated with it were adopted also in the non-protestant areas of Germany. The outstanding position attributed to the state and its justification by idealism suggests to regard the role of the state in the 19th century as the third important determining factor in the development of the German identity.

As a result of the Napoleonic wars and in reaction to French imperialism - quite in agreement with the Lutheran world view and idealism - early in the 19th century the idea of a "strong state" developed. German intellectuals felt that in the competition among the emerging European nations a strong Germany was necessary. The practical consequences of this idea were the militarization of the state and the enhancement of governmental effectiveness by introducing codified laws, rules and objective procedures for the functioning of an efficient, pervasive bureaucracy. For these laws and rules to be effective, they had to cover all possible bureaucratic decisions. Under the influence of idealism, this meant that they had to be numerous, general in their coverage, and neither favour nor discriminate against anybody. A corollary of this modernization, then, was equality before the general law. It is worth mentioning here that different from, e.g., France or the Anglo-Saxon countries, it was not an emancipated bourgeoisie who took the lead in this development, but the ruling caste. It is particularly the Prussian noble Freiherr von Stein who was influential in this reform. The development of the German bureaucracy, certainly the first step towards modernization and one that has been so important for what even today is regarded as typically German, thus was introduced top down, as it were.


Heinrich Friedrich Karl Reichsfreiherr vom und zum Stein (1757 - 1831)

Quite in line with this "top down" approach to modernization, it was the state itself that was the most important driving force, the largest entrepreneur, behind the industrialization of Germany during the 19th century, supported by major banks and huge industrial trusts. Part of the leading role of the state was the fact that laws introducing social security and the protection of women and children against dangerous work and exploitation were not that much introduced as a result of class struggle, than by a paternalistic Bismarck.


Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck-Schönhausen (1815 - 1898)

The German welfare state thus had its origin to a large extent in this caring attitude of the state and its leaders. That it was - at least in the 19th century - not the working class or the bourgeoisie that pushed this social achievement through, can be seen as a consequence of the Lutheran worldview: the active shaping of the world is a task of those put into the position of political leadership - subjects should not participate in such public affairs, but obey. This holds for all the other areas of modernization mentioned.

However, modernization and industrialization more and more dissolved the traditional corporate structure of German society, where every individual had his or her predetermined place, knew how to act in social life and could concentrate on his or her inner religious or moral perfection. Industrializiation caused an enormous migration of population within the borders of the state thereby changing the normal surroundings not just because of large technological plants such as coalmines and steel works, but also by a reshaping of the social structure. Social groups such as the workforce and/or the craftsmen - it was also from this latter group that some developed into an affluent section of a productive middle class - still had to find their place in society. The development of a new social order required individuals to have to see to their own social welfare and to the practical details for their lives much more than ever before and so, they had to take a public stance for this issues. The educated middle class in particular felt to be alienated by these effects of modernisation. This led to a tension between the Protestant inwardness and idealism on the one hand, and the perspective based on a modern, social and technical rationalism on the other hand. This tension between the religious and philosophical ideals and between the consequences of social and technical progress are characteristic features of a fourth and undoubtedly very important determining factor of German identity.

This continued to grow in the second half of the 19th century. In the cultural sphere, it had its culmination in the glorification of the past first as a nostalgic and then as a reactionary movement. This attitude is expressed in late Romanticism and particularly in the works of Richard Wagner. In the social sphere, there was an increasing preference for a particular form of social organisation i.e. for "community" (Gemeinschaft).

This concept can be traced back to Ferdinand Tönnies (Tönnies 1887; Dahrendorf 1965). In 1887 Tönnies made the distinction which still holds in present-day sociology between "society" (Gesellschaft) and "community" (Gemeinschaft). To put it simply, "society" refers to the free organisation of individuals at the level of a state based on a social contract whereas "community" refers to the organisation of individual in a manageable social unity based on primordial bondings and affiliations. In a "community", trust, intimacy, agreement and shared moral values are dominant, all the social actions are honest involving the whole personality of the individual. In a "society", however, anonymity pre-dominates and social actions are motivated by changeable, arbitary goals and by taking into consideration what is merely useful so that dishonesty and hypocrisy can be used as means to attain these ends and the participation factor can be a case of sheer vanity. In short, "community" is warm and personal, but "society" is cold and impersonal. Both an hostility to technology under the guise of idealism and a preference for community are still very common in present-day society.

In conclusion, another determining factor should be mentioned if the contemporary manifestations of German identity are to be adequately covered. This refers to the consequences of the Third Reich after 1945. The defeat of Nazi barbarism cast doubts upon an uninterrupted continuation of the traditional, cultural ways of thinking and behaving and opened up Germany to other cultural influences.

A by no means unimportant factor was the influence of American culture working through the "re-education" programme carried out by the Anglo-Saxon victors and also through the present social and cultural internationalism (Dahrendorf 1965). This is obvious not only (in the sense of George Ritzer) that, since that time, German society has become "McDonaldised" (Ritzer 1993). The external consequences of social rationalisation of people's life-styles are accompanied by a widespread acceptance of values oriented more towards "society".

The willingness to participate in the political process has increased so that even forms of civil disobedience of the protest movements are now very common. The developments described by Inglehart as the change in values of the modern age have not left Germany untouched (1977). In education, for example, today's German parents place even more value than twenty years ago on the development of their children to become self-motivated, independently minded individuals with the result that values such as order, obedience and a sense of duty quite clearly no longer have the importance that was previously the case. In contrast to the traditional German stereotype, a large part of the younger generation is disconcertingly hedonistic; they no longer see the state as a community to which they are bound by their membership, but instead, it is for them more a service organisation offering its services (Klages 1984). Individualism for most of today's Germans is no longer primarily rooted in an inward looking religious outlook, but is more a case of an individualistic, totally self-centred participation in public life. One positive consequence, however, of this orientation toward "society" is Germany's firmly based democracy in the country.

Some consequences of German culture

These basic factors determining the history of ideas produced numerous features of German culture and behaviour which, in the intercultural comparisons, can be described as "typically German" (Hofstede 1980; Mole 1990; Loewenthal 1990). Thus Protestant inward looking attitudes, for example, can be seen as the basis for the German attitude to work in regarding it as a duty rather than a means to self-fulfilment. Similarly, the attitude of being serious at work, of giving an impression of "gravitas" and the separation of work and private life are all connected with the effects of Lutheranism. Another characteristic influence of Protestantism in producing attitudes led people to accept established authorities and to prefer clear rules and guidelines - attitudes which are part of what Hofstede describes as the uncertainty avoidence. The longing for avoiding any uncertainty is also influenced by idealism which encouraged the tendency always to find general and basic solutions to problems and to rely on experts rather than on trusting in common sense.

This preference for general rules is also reflected in the significant role the state plays in German culture in which all the areas of life are permeated with its laws. A by no means insignificant reason for this is that the citizens themselves demand rules and regulations as, for example, in the field of ecology and these rules must be implemented with the full seal of authority of the state itself rather than trusting in people to negotiate a mutual agreement among the parties directly concerned.

This idealistic scepticism towards modernism has contributed to producing the "two cultures" conflict as described by the British physicist and philosopher C. P. Snow in a more extreme form in Germany than in other countries (1967). This conflict - arts versus sciences - exists, however, in all highly developed western societies. Despite the indisputable dominance of the scientific and technological culture in everyday life and despite its contribution to the welfare of everyone in Germany, the vocal intellectual leaders of public opinion together with the others in the media, schools and churches, have cast doubt not only on the consequences of science and technology, but also on the legitimacy of the scientific world view itself. This explains, for example, the importance of the ecology lobby in Germany.

The second consequence of anti-modernism, i.e. the sense of preference for community has led to the popularity of the numerous clubs and associations in Germany which are so important to everyday life particularly in the localities. The sharp social distinctions so prevalent in other areas of German life such as for example between the boss and the worker almost completely disappear amongst club members. This helps, of course, to lessen the existing class distinctions in society.

It was particularly in the social and economic areas that the basic principles derived from the history of ideas proved to be very positive for Germany's development. For instance, the Protestant work ethic explains why German workers and employees are able to get on with their work in a very independent and self-motivated way within clearly demarcated areas of responsibility. The Protestant attitude of handing over political negotiations of interests to the relevant and responsible people and institutions also explains why work relations in Germany have always been relatively harmonious. Negotiations for wages and conditions take place less by direct confrontation between management and workers, and far more by negotiations with the union representatives responsible for large sectors in the economy and their counterparts in the corresponding employers' associations representing their commmon interests. Whatever is agreed upon by the "responsible" representatives of a particular economic sector is generally accepted by the members who usually have played no part in the decision process. Compared with other countries, this results in relatively stable and calm industrial relations.

Another consequence of the basic attitudes arising from the history of ideas is German thoroughness. This is the practical aspect from the profundity of German philosophy and from the uncertainty-uncertainty. Much of Germany's industrial success can be explained by the high quality of its products and in turn, much of this quality is due to a systematic approach in construction and production and also to allowing wide safety margins to ensure nothing goes wrong. The same applies to the German cultural standard embedded of sticking to rules - whether established or agreed upon. The reputation of Germans in business of constantly fulfilling the "terms of contract" has proven to be advantageous for international competition.

History also shows, however, that the consequences of the fundamental determining factors in German culture can also be very negative. This is illustrated, for example, by the effects Protestantism and idealism had on individual ethical responsibility. In complete conformity with this way of thinking, the sociologist Max Weber took the division between religious and philosophical subjectivism on the one hand, and the objectivism necessary in modern society on the other hand, to the conclusion that ethics are ultimately a private matter (Weber 1971:377-379; 549-560). This released for example the Prussian officials or officers from having to justify their behaviour in their professional life as long as they acted within the law and obeyed the orders of their superiors. In fact, they only had to bear responsibility if they, in any way, deviated from this course of action. Thus a type of person emerged from those who were active in the political and social sphere whom Max Weber designated as the "moralist of conviction" (Gesinnungsethiker): a person who sticks to his convictions quite independently of the practical consequences of his ideological motivation and moreover, quite independently of the consequences for other people.

From this ideological background, the characteristics such as servility, blind obedience, dogmatism, inflexibility and discrimination against others originated. These were the very same characteristics the Nazi ideology exploited to the most horrifying extreme. The shocking success of this ideology resulted in their extremely subtle use of the anti-modern feeling in the German population by appealing to romantic sentiments with the idea of "community" with the notion of "the people's community" instead of society. They also knew how to direct both the "community" ideal and the anti-modern and anti-progress attitudes to obedience to a totalitarian regime and to an enthusiastic acceptance of technology based on the idea of a "strong state".

The development of German history is a good example of the fact that the ideological heritage of any culture has the potential of being used by its members in the same way, be it positively or negatively. It is not an unchangeable constant, but is interpreted differently in different periods in history. Which particular form this significance assumes is influenced by the concrete, ecological, economic and (geo)- political external circumstances of the particular period in question. It is also important to note, however, that the relevant current interpretation is made by the leaders of public opinion and commentators who increasingly have to bear a particular kind of historical responsibility. What Barth defines as an ethnic group (Barth 1969) - i.e. a group which at various particular periods makes use of different means from its own store of values and modes of action in order to differentiate itself from other groups and to bind its own members to its own group - can also apply to cultures. Cultures also determine their own identity, set up boundaries against other cultures, exercise pressure on members to conform and they do this by emphasising the features of their cultural store which is decided by their leader of public opinion, but which alters in the course of history.

3. Current trends

If the basic determining factors producing cultural identity are not a historical constant - how then can today's "German identity" be envisaged?

The first response to this obvious question can only be answered by the word: "ambivalent" - and this is not merely because the basic determining factors of any culture can have the two faces of a Janus figure in its effects. Present-day German identity is characterised by several particular kinds of ambivalence. I shall deal with only two examples in this paper. The first concerns the problem of the attitude of the Germans themselves towards their national identity and the second is: after re-unification how far is it at all possible to talk about one German identity? How these kinds of ambivalence develop and then how these ambiguities are resolved is quite clearly of crucial importance for Germany's role in the process of European unification.

It is, in fact, difficult to talk about "a" or "the" German identity because many Germans are themselves vague about how far they do have a national identity and whether they actually want to have an identity at all. The misuse caused by the Nazis rendered an uninterrupted continuation of the traditional German ways of thinking impossible after 1945. Similarly, the re-education programme of the western victors contributed to the Germans becoming alienated not only from the potential negative effects of their cultural determining factors but to quite a large extent to their becoming alienated from the factors themselves. It is now a completely uncontroversial fact for the post-war generation in their fifties and for most of the younger generation that any form of nationalism is bad. It can be stated even more strongly that everything national is suspect.

They regard themselves to be more West Europeans than Germans. This attitude has been re-inforced by all the governments since the founding of the Federal Republic with their policy of Western integration and their energetic encouragement of European union. West German politics have always aimed at the Germans being "good Europeans".

One effect of this policy can be seen in the way national symbols are dealt with. Unlike the USA, for example, the German national flag is rarely seen in any official rooms. Although, for example, the approximately 100 million German speakers are the largest language community in the EU, unlike France, Germany does not persue any clear policy with the aim of implementing a proportional use of German in the European institutions (Ammon 1991). The governments and the economy in West Germany have always eschewed huge technological projects which, in other countries, would have been objects of national pride. To become involved in aviation and aeronautical projects such as the Airbus and the Ariane rocket projects, Germany was pressured by France.



Generally, most explicit German manifestations of patriotism are suspect. Any salute to the flag as for example is the case in many US schools would be regarded by most Germans of today as an attempt at nationalistic indoctrination, and the enthusiastic patriotism which the American public displayed towards the invasion of the tiny island of Grenada or in the war against Saddam-Hussein's Iraq had, to put it mildly, a very embarrassing effect on the German post-war generation. Patriotism in Germany usually takes the form of constitutional patriotism i.e. being proud of the "Basic Law" (Grundgesetz) set up by the founding fathers (and mothers) of post-war Germany to lay the foundations for modern, democratic Germany. The "Grundgesetz" is generally seen as sacrosanct in public opinion and as the arbiter for all political activities. This is reflected by the fact that it is very difficult to implement any changes in the "Grundgesetz" or even any changes in ist interpretation. By this constitutional law, the political participants in Germany have a very limited sphere of action. For example, the reluctance of the German government in the Gulf War or in the Bosnian conflict to involve German soldiers to support their western allies in any actions outside the NATO field of action can be traced back to the fact that according to the Basic Law the German armed forces can only be sent into action for the defence of Germany or the allies. Even more, any substitution of the "Grundgesetz" by another constitution is out of the question. Although in 1949 the "Grundgesetz" was envisaged merely as a provisional constitutional structure for West Germany which was to be replaced after the re-unification of the two German states by a common constitution, any attempt after re-unification in 1990 to put a new common constitution of this kind on the political agenda was doomed from the start. Thus, quite in line with the history of ideas, The German's uncertainty about their national identity is balanced to a large extent by a clearly codified set of laws.

It is, however, important to note that this uncertainty applies only to former West Germany. Whereas the Federal Republic was exposed to the cultural influences of the West after the Second World War, which triggered a change in values, East Germany was generally left untouched by foreign influences - except, of course, for the adoption of numerous external formal features and structures in the economic and social spheres taken from the Soviet Union. Many of the old Prussian values and virtues were, however, able to survive beneath this surface. They were kept alive by the communist regime and used to their advantage, as in for example, the distribution of awards for duty, discipline and order. The orientation towards "community" was highlighted in the socialist collectives and the welfare state structures were further developed into all areas of life almost to the point of coddling the people.

This cultural continuity became possible for the East German rulers because they ascribed the negative effects of German cultural history - such as the holocaust - to western capitalism and held capitalist West Germany to be responsible for this history and because they took over the positive aspects of German cultural history for themselves. With this background, values such as individualism, initiative and self-reliance were much less prevalent amongst adults in the East than in the West. Particularly among the members of the public state services in the former GDR, there are still many who regret the state's loss of total power and who identify with the old system.

The most interesting difference between East and West Germany concerns, however, the significance of the nation for its own cultural identity. Unlike Federal Republicans with their bias towards the West, East Germans tend more towards defining themselves as members of the German nation. This is not very surprising in view of the fact that very few international and intercultural contacts were possible for them under communist rule. In addition, there was the fact that East Germany still continued to be scientifically and technologically superior to all the other states in the former Eastern Block resulting in its privileged position in COMECON and giving rise to national pride among the citizens. For this reason, an inconspicuous national consciousness is more obvious in the new federal states than in West Germany. Because of re-unification, the idea of nationhood as a feature of identity is once again entering into the consciousness even of West Germans as a symbol of identity. It is, however, still unclear what significance this will have for the growth of a future "united- German" identity and for the practical policies of German governments.

It is certain that this development will not lead to a revival of the former chauvinistic nationalism. It must be conceded, of course, that there are in Germany - as in other countries - acts of violence against foreigners and minorities and that many of these violent acts are accompanied by Nazi symbols. It is understandable that, in the context of German history, these sad events are a cause of concern particularly in other countries. As sociological studies show, however, these - apparently - extreme right wing actions and acts of violence are usually a juvenile phenomenon and are not politically motivated (Türingisches Ministerium für Justiz 1993).

These actions are generally caused by the hatred in frustrated young people with no future. Although this hatred and anger is vented on foreigners it is, however, directed not primarily against the foreigners but against the society to which the youths ascribe their frustration. The youths do not use neo-Nazi symbols because of their historical content - which most of them do not even understand - but because these symbols are so vehemently rejected by the adults in society. In East Germany, there is the additional factor that these kinds of actions can be seen to provoke the West Germans who pretend to be so sophisticated and who like to regard themselves as morally superior.

Onlythe future will show whether those areas of ambivalence will sort themselves out or how this process may take place and what effects the basic determining factors of the German cultural history will have on the further development of a German identity. It is, however, obvious that this development will have a crucial influence on Germany's role in a united Europe.

[pieter]

German idealism


Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804)

German idealism was a philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It developed out of the work of Immanuel Kant in the 1780s and 1790s, and was closely linked both with romanticism and the revolutionary politics of the Enlightenment. The best-known thinkers in the movement were Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Schelling, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, while Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Gottlob Ernst Schulze, Karl Leonhard Reinhold, and Friedrich Schleiermacher were also major contributors.


Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743 – 1819)

Meaning of idealism

The word "idealism" has more than one meaning. The philosophical meaning of idealism here is that the properties we discover in objects depend on the way that those objects appear to us as perceiving subjects, and not something they possess "in themselves," apart from our experience of them. The very notion of a "thing in itself" should be understood as an option of a set of functions for an operating mind, such that we consider something that appears without respect to the specific manner in which it appears. The question of what properties a thing might have "independently of the mind" is thus incoherent for Idealism.

Background

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) is sometimes considered the first of the German idealists. Kant's work purported to bridge the two dominant philosophical schools in the 18th century: 1) rationalism, which held that knowledge could be attained by reason alone a priori (prior to experience), and 2) empiricism, which held that knowledge could be arrived at only through the senses a posteriori (after experience). Kant's solution was to propose that while we could know particular facts about the world only via sensory experience, we could know the form they must take prior to any experience. That is, we cannot know what objects we will encounter, but we can know how we will encounter them. Kant called his mode of philosophising "critical philosophy", in that it was supposedly less concerned with setting out positive doctrine than with critiquing the limits to the theories we can set out. The conclusion he presented, as above, he called "transcendental idealism". This distinguished it from earlier "idealism", such as George Berkeley's, which held that we can only directly know the ideas in our minds, not the objects that they represent. Kant said that there are things-in-themselves, noumena, that is, things that exist other than being merely sensations and ideas in our minds. Kant held in the Critique of Pure Reason that the world of appearances (phenomena) is empirically real and transcendentally ideal. The mind plays a central role in influencing the way that the world is experienced: we perceive phenomena through time, space and the categories of the understanding. It is this notion that was taken to heart by Kant's philosophical successors.


George Berkeley (1685 – 1753)

At the other end of the movement, Arthur Schopenhauer is not normally classed as a German idealist. He considered himself to be a transcendental idealist. In his major work 'The World as Will and Idea' he discusses his indebtedness to Kant, and the work includes Schopenhauer's extensive analysis of the Critique. The Young Hegelians, a number of philosophers who developed Hegel's work in various directions, were in some cases idealists. On the other hand, Karl Marx numbered among them, and he professed to be a materialist.


Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 – 1831)

Kant's transcendental idealism consisted of taking a point of view outside of and above oneself (transcendentally) and understanding that the mind directly knows only phenomena or ideas. Whatever exists other than mental phenomena, or ideas that appear to the mind, is a thing-in-itself and cannot be directly and immediately known.

Theorists

Jacobi

In 1787, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi addressed, in his book 'On Faith, or Idealism and Realism', Kant's concept of "thing-in-itself." Jacobi agreed that the objective thing-in-itself cannot be directly known. However, he stated, it must be taken on faith. A subject must believe that there is a real object in the external world that is related to the representation or mental idea that is directly known. This faith or belief is a result of revelation or immediately known, but logically unproved, truth. The real existence of a thing-in-itself is revealed or disclosed to the observing subject. In this way, the subject directly knows the ideal, subjective representations that appear in the mind, and strongly believes in the real, objective thing-in-itself that exists outside of the mind. By presenting the external world as an object of faith, Jacobi legitimized belief and its theological associations. "…By reducing the external world to a matter of faith, he wanted merely to open a little door for faith in general…."

Reinhold


Karl Leonhard Reinhold (1757 – 1823)

Karl Leonhard Reinhold published two volumes of 'Letters Concerning the Kantian Philosophy' in 1790 and 1792. They provided a clear explication of Kant's thoughts, which were previously inaccessible due to Kant's use of complex or technical language.

Reinhold also tried to prove Kant's assertion that humans and other animals can know only images that appear in their minds, never "things-in-themselves" (things that are not mere appearances in a mind). In order to establish his proof, Reinhold stated an axiom that could not possibly be doubted. From this axiom, all knowledge of consciousness could be deduced. His axiom was: "Representation is distinguished in consciousness by the subject from the subject and object, and is referred to both."

He thereby started, not from definitions, but, from a principle that referred to mental images or representations in a conscious mind. In this way, he analyzed knowledge into (1) the knowing subject, or observer, (2) the known object, and (3) the image or representation in the subject's mind. In order to understand transcendental idealism, it is necessary to reflect deeply enough to distinguish experience as consisting of these three components: subject, subject's representation of object, and object.

Schulze


Gottlob Ernst Schulze (1761 — 1833)

Kant felt that a mental idea or representation must be of something external to the mind. He gave the name of ding an Sich, or thing-in-itself to that which is represented. However, Gottlob Ernst Schulze wrote, anonymously, that the law of cause and effect only applies to the phenomena within the mind, not between those phenomena and any things-in-themselves outside of the mind. That is, a thing-in-itself cannot be the cause of an idea or image of a thing in the mind. In this way, he discredited Kant's philosophy by using Kant's own reasoning to disprove the existence of a thing-in-itself.

Fichte



After Schulze had seriously criticized the notion of a thing-in-itself, Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) produced a philosophy similar to Kant's, but without a thing-in-itself. Fichte asserted that our representations, ideas, or mental images are merely the productions of our ego, or knowing subject. For him, there is no external thing-in-itself that produces the ideas. On the contrary, the knowing subject, or ego, is the cause of the external thing, object, or non-ego.

Fichte's style was a challenging exaggeration of Kant's already difficult writing. Also, Fichte claimed that his truths were apparent to intellectual, non-perceptual, intuition. That is, the truth can be immediately seen by the use of reason.

Schopenhauer, a student of Fichte's, wrote of him:

"...Fichte who, because the thing-in-itself had just been discredited, at once prepared a system without any thing-in-itself. Consequently, he rejected the assumption of anything that was not through and through merely our representation, and therefore let the knowing subject be all in all or at any rate produce everything from its own resources. For this purpose, he at once did away with the essential and most meritorious part of the Kantian doctrine, the distinction between a priori and a posteriori and thus that between the phenomenon and the thing-in-itself. For he declared everything to be a priori, naturally without any proofs for such a monstrous assertion; instead of these, he gave sophisms and even crazy sham demonstrations whose absurdity was concealed under the mask of profundity and of the incomprehensibility ostensibly arising therefrom. Moreover, he appealed boldly and openly to intellectual intuition, that is, really to inspiration."

– Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. I, §13

Hegel



Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) was a German philosopher born in Stuttgart, Württemberg, in present-day southwest Germany. Hegel responded to Kant's philosophy by suggesting that the unsolvable contradictions given by Kant in his Antinomies of Pure Reason applied not only to the four areas Kant gave (world as infinite vs. finite, material as composite vs. atomic, etc.) but in all objects and conceptions, notions and ideas. To know this he suggested makes a "vital part in a philosophical theory." Given that abstract thought is thus limited, he went on to consider how historical formations give rise to different philosophies and ways of thinking. For Hegel, thought fails when it is only given as an abstraction and is not united with considerations of historical reality. In his major work The Phenomenology of Spirit he went on to trace the formation of self-consciousness through history and the importance of other people in the awakening of self-consciousness (see master-slave dialectic). Thus Hegel introduces two important ideas to metaphysics and philosophy: the integral importance of history and of the Other person. His work is theological in that it replaces the traditional concept of God with that of an Absolute Spirit.

Hegel was hugely influential throughout the nineteenth century; by its end, according to Bertrand Russell, "the leading academic philosophers, both in America and Britain, were largely Hegelian". His influence has continued in contemporary philosophy but mainly in Continental philosophy. In contrast, contemporary Analytic philosophy of the English-speaking world came about as a reaction against Hegel.

Schelling



With regard to the experience of objects, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854) claimed that the ideas or mental images in the mind are identical to the extended objects which are external to the mind. Schelling's "absolute identity" or "indifferentism" asserted that there is no difference between the subjective and the objective, that is, the ideal and the real.

In 1851, Arthur Schopenhauer criticized Schelling's absolute identity of the subjective and the objective, or of the ideal and the real. "...[E]verything that rare minds like Locke and Kant had separated after an incredible amount of reflection and judgment, was to be again poured into the pap of that absolute identity. For the teaching of those two thinkers [Locke and Kant] may be very appropriately described as the doctrine of the absolute diversity of the ideal and the real, or of the subjective and the objective." (Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. I, "Fragments for the History of Philosophy," § 13).

Schleiermacher



Friedrich Schleiermacher was a theologian who asserted that the ideal and the real are united in God. He understood the ideal as the subjective mental activities of thought, intellect, and reason. The real was, for him, the objective area of nature and physical being. Schleiermacher declared that the unity of the ideal and the real is manifested in God. The two divisions do not have a productive or causal effect on each other. Rather, they are both equally existent in the absolute transcendental entity which is God.

Responses to German idealism

Schopenhauer



Schopenhauer contended that Spinoza had a great influence on post-Kantian German idealists. Schopenhauer wrote: "In consequence of Kant's criticism of all speculative theology, almost all the philosophizers in Germany cast themselves back on to Spinoza, so that the whole series of unsuccessful attempts known by the name of post-Kantian philosophy is simply Spinozism tastelessly got up, veiled in all kinds of unintelligible language, and otherwise twisted and distorted," (from The World as Will and Representation, Vol.II, ch. L).

According to Schopenhauer, Kant's original philosophy, with its refutation of all speculative theology, had been transformed by the German Idealists. Through the use of his technical terms, such as "transcendental," "transcendent," "reason," "intelligibility," and "thing-in-itself" they attempted to speak of what exists beyond experience and, in this way, to revive the notions of God, free will, and immortality of soul. Kant had effectively relegated these unknowable and inexperiencable notions to faith and belief.

19th century United States

"German idealism was initially introduced to the broader community of American literati through a Vermont intellectual, James Marsh. Studying theology with Moses Stuart at Andover Seminary in the early 1820s, Marsh sought a Christian theology that would 'keep alive the heart in the head.' " Some American theologians and churchmen found value in German Idealism's theological concept of the infinite Absolute Ideal or Geist [Spirit]. It provided a religious alternative to the traditional Christian concept of the Deity. "…

ost–Kantian idealism can certainly be viewed as a religious school of thought…

." The Absolute Ideal Weltgeist [World Spirit] was invoked by American ministers as they "turned to German idealism in the hope of finding comfort against English positivism and empiricism." German idealism was a substitute for religion after the Civil War when "Americans were drawn to German idealism because of a 'loss of faith in traditional cosmic explanations.' " "By the early 1870s, the infiltration of German idealism was so pronounced that Walt Whitman declared in his personal notes that 'Only Hegel is fit for America — is large enough and free enough.' "

Thomas Hill Green



In England, during the nineteenth century, philosopher Thomas Hill Green embraced German Idealism in order to salvage Christian monotheism as a basis for morality. His philosophy attempted to account for an eternal consciousness or mind that was similar to Berkeley's concept of God and Hegel's Absolute. John Rodman, in the introduction to his book on Thomas Hill Green's political theory, wrote: "Green is best seen as an exponent of German idealism as an answer to the dilemma posed by the discrediting of Christianity…."

Ortega y Gasset



According to José Ortega y Gasset[10], with Post–Kantian German Idealism, "…never before has a lack of truthfulness played such a large and important role in philosophy." "They did whatever they felt like doing with concepts. As if by magic they changed anything into any other thing." According to Ortega y Gasset, "…the basic force behind their work was not strictly and exclusively the desire for truth…." Ortega y Gasset quoted Schopenhauer's 'Parerga and Paralipomena', Volume II, in which Schopenhauer wrote that Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel forgot "the fact that one can feel an authentic and bitter seriousness" for philosophy. Schopenhauer, in Ortega y Gasset's quote, hoped that philosophers like those three men could learn "true and fruitful seriousness, such that the problem of existence would capture the thinker and bestir his innermost being."

Santayana



George Santayana had strongly held opinions regarding this attempt to overcome the effects of Kant's transcendental idealism.

"German Idealism, when we study it as a product of its own age and country, is a most engaging phenomenon; it is full of afflatus, sweep, and deep searchings of the heart; but it is essentially romantic and egoistical, and all in it that is not soliloquy is mere system-making and sophistry. Therefore when it is taught by unromantic people ex cathedra, in stentorian tones, and represented as the rational foundation of science and religion, with neither of which it has any honest sympathy, it becomes positively odious – one of the worst impostures and blights to which a youthful imagination could be subjected."

– George Santayana, Winds of Doctrine, IV, i.

G. E. Moore and spiritualism



In the first sentence of his 'The Refutation of Idealism', G. E. Moore wrote: "Modern Idealism, if it asserts any general conclusion about the universe at all, asserts that it is spiritual." This was in contrast to Schopenhauer's contention that spiritualism, devised merely as a way to avoid materialism, is not related to idealism. Schopenhauer wrote that "the assumption was made of a second substance, outside and along with matter, namely an immaterial substance." In claiming that "spiritualism is the specious and false safeguard against materialism," Schopenhauer asserted that "the real and true safeguard [against materialism] is idealism." Schopenhauer's idealism, however, was Kantian transcendental idealism, not the German Idealism or Absolute Idealism of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. According to Kant's idealism, "[w]hat is proved is not, as in spiritualism, the knower's independence of matter, but the dependence of all matter on the knower."

Popper



Karl Popper claimed that "It was Kant's criticism of all attempts to prove the existence of God which led to the romantic reaction of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel.… With the romantics, a new kind of dogmatism becomes fashionable…." German Idealism is oracular, according to Popper. "It confronts us with its dictum. And we can take it or leave it."

Žižek


Slavoj Žižek (Ljubljana; March 21 1949)

German Idealism is claimed to be the basis of the academic doctrines of Slovenian continental philosopher and critical theorist Slavoj Žižek's . He professed that "the core of my entire work is the endeavour to … reactualize German idealism". The reason Žižek thinks German idealism needs reactualizing is that we are thought to understand it in one way, whereas the truth of it is something else. The term "reactualizing" refers to the fact that there are different possible ways to interpret German idealism, and Žižek wishes to make "actual" one of those possibilities in distinction to the way it is currently realized. At its most basic, German idealism believes that the truth of something could be found in itself. For Žižek, the fundamental insight of German idealism is that the truth of something is always outside it. So the truth of our experience lies outside ourselves, in the Symbolic and the Real, rather than being buried deep within us. We cannot look into our selves and find out who we truly are, because who we truly are is always elsewhere. Our selves are somewhere else in the Symbolic formations which always precede us and in the Real which we have to disavow if we are to enter the Symbolic order.

Slavoj Žižek is working in the traditions of Hegelianism, Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. He has made contributions to political theory, film theory, and theoretical psychoanalysis.

Žižek uses examples from popular culture to explain the theory of Jacques Lacan and uses Lacanian psychoanalysis, Hegelian philosophy and Marxist economic criticism to interpret social phenomena. He writes on many topics including subjectivity, ideology, capitalism, fundamentalism, racism, tolerance, multiculturalism, human rights, ecology, globalization, the Iraq War, revolution, utopianism, totalitarianism, postmodernism, pop culture, opera, cinema, political theology, and religion.

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Lutheranism


Portrait of Martin Luther, oil on panel by Lucas Cranach, 1529; in the Uffizi, Florence. [Credit: The Bridgeman Art Library/Getty Images]

Lutheranism is the branch of Christianity that traces its interpretation of the Christian religion to the teachings of Martin Luther and the 16th-century movements that issued from his reforms. Along with Anglicanism, the Reformed and Presbyterian (Calvinist) churches, Methodism, and the Baptist churches, Lutheranism is one of the five major branches of Protestantism. Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, however, Lutheranism is not a single entity. It is organized in autonomous regional or national churches, such as the Church of Sweden or the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mecklenburg, Germany. Globally, there are some 140 such Lutheran church bodies; 138 of these are loosely joined in the Lutheran World Federation, which was established in 1947. At the beginning of the 21st century, there were more than 65 million Lutherans worldwide, making Lutheranism the second largest Protestant denomination, after the Baptist churches.

The term Lutheran, which appeared as early as 1519, was coined by Luther’s opponents. The self-designation of Luther’s followers was “evangelical”—that is, centred on the Gospel. After the Diet of Speyer in 1529, when German rulers sympathetic to Luther’s cause voiced a protest against the diet’s Catholic majority, which had overturned a decree of 1526, Luther’s followers came to be known as Protestants. However, because both evangelical and Protestant proved to be overly broad designations (before long they also included the Reformed churches), eventually the name Evangelical Lutheran became standard. Another name occasionally used is Churches of the Augsburg Confession (Germany), which recalls the Lutheran statement of faith presented to the German emperor at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530. In the United States several nomenclatures have been used, all of which, with the exception of the Evangelical Catholic Church, include the term Lutheran in their titles (e.g., the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod).

In the 16th century, Lutheranism became formally established in various principalities by being declared the official religion of the region by the relevant governmental authority. As early as the 1520s German principalities and cities adopted Lutheranism, and they were later followed by Sweden and the other Scandinavian countries. Later, Lutheran notions found their way to Hungary and Transylvania. Lutheranism arrived in North America in the middle of the 17th century in the areas of present-day Delaware and southern Pennsylvania. In the 18th century and increasingly in the 19th, European and North American Lutherans undertook missions throughout the globe, leading to the establishment of indigenous Lutheran churches in many countries. Beginning in the 20th century, ecumenical initiatives affected both Lutheranism and its relation to other Christian faiths.

Theologically, Lutheranism embraces the standard affirmations of classic Protestantism—the repudiation of papal and ecclesiastical authority in favour of the Bible (sola Scriptura), the rejection of five of the traditional seven sacraments affirmed by the Catholic Church, and the insistence that human reconciliation with God is effected solely by divine grace (sola gratia), which is appropriated solely by faith (sola fide), in contrast to the notion of a convergence of human effort and divine grace in the process of salvation.

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