As if Germany hadn’t been humiliated enough by the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines and the investigations and media reports that try to point the finger everywhere except the obvious culprit, Berlin just rolled the red carpet for the chief suspect.
US President Joe Biden received Germany’s highest Order of Merit on Friday.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and others lavished praise on the “big guy” and thanked him for strengthening the transatlantic alliance.
US President Joe Biden has been awarded Germany’s highest honor, the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit at a ceremony in Berlin, on his farewell trip to Europe. pic.twitter.com/pNZOyos0e7
— DW Politics (@dw_politics) October 18, 2024
It was all quite surreal, capped by a Biden press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in which through he uttered the following:
“…I don’t see how we maintain stability in Europe and around the world without a tight, German-U.S relationship…”
To which one might ask, “maintain what stability?” All they had to do was step aside for a reminder.
Protesters in Berlin are telling Joe Biden to “go to hell” during his political visit to Germany. While Biden called Germany the “closest and most important” ally of the US, the streets are echoing with a different message. pic.twitter.com/qy6TLsmdwm
— Gaza Under Attack_🇵🇸 (@Palestine001_) October 19, 2024
Beyond setting the world on fire, the tight German-US relationship is also proving disastrous for Germany. It’s the same old news. The country’s war policy continues to result in a severe energy crisis and a trade war which is decimating German industry.
The economy continues to shrink. German Economy Minister Robert Habeck announced earlier this month that it is now expected to contract by 0.2 percent this year, revising a more optimistic spring outlook of 0.3 percent growth.
The government pats itself on the back for “stabilizing” energy prices, but that’s at a level much higher than pre-2022 and one that is uncompetitive with countries like the US and China. It is now considering even more state aid for manufacturers in an effort to keep them from leaving the country or at least investing more in their factories abroad than in their domestic bases in Germany.
Due to Germany’s debt brake, that means money must be taken from elsewhere, which means social spending cuts.
The government is increasingly selling off state assets, such as Schenker, the profitable logistics subsidiary of national railway operator Deutsche Bahn, which was sold to its Danish rival DSV for $15.3 billion (New York City-based hedge fund Third Point run by billionaire Daniel Loeb just took a major stake in DSV).
There’s also an enormous housing crisis in the country with no improvement in sight.
The biggest problem for Germany is that turning over its foreign policy to US interests runs counter to the economic interests of the majority of Germans — although it should be noted that the wealthiest Germans are making off quite well from all the chaos. On Russia, China, energy, and wars on the EU periphery that create millions of refugees in the EU, Germany as a whole, however, is on the losing end.
“In the middle of the crisis, Germany and Europe are squeezed between China and the United States, and must learn to assert themselves,” Economy Minister Robert Habeck recently told reporters in Berlin.
No doubt. How and when is Germany going to start doing so?
Transatlantic Relationship Rethink?
When a report from The German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) titled “Europe and the End of Pax Americana” showed up in my inbox, I thought for a second that maybe the German establishment was beginning to turn the corner.
I was sorely disappointed.
SWP is one of, if not the foremost think tanks in Germany, and it advises the Bundestag and the federal government on foreign and security policy issues so it’s worth paying attention to, although it usually produces quite bland, toned down versions of reports from the imperial capital in DC.
In this particular paper the premise is that Germany must prepare for the outcome of the upcoming US election, and it starts off well enough:
The idea that US power underpins international security remains deeply anchored in today’s US political elite. Ultimately, this idea also lies at the heart of US-led alliances, including NATO. But the three pillars of Pax Americana – US military strength, the country’s economic openness and the liberal-democratic foundations of American foreign policy – have, in fact, been crumbling for some time.
The report has the usual rules-based international order talking points like China, Russia, and Iran being threats to US bases surrounding them and that these countries refused liberal-democratic values despite all the free trade gifts given to them, but the takeaway seems sound: there are increasing limits to US military power, and the US is turning to America-first geoeconomic thinking with more sanctions and export controls (the US becoming increasingly abusive with its “allies” goes unmentioned).
What the author seems to be driving at is that Germany must begin to think more of itself as the US does the same. Sounds sensical, right?
It’s all downhill from there. Here are the solutions the report comes up with:
The minimum requirement would be to build those specific capabilities for which Europeans have been particularly dependent on the US and which Washington would most likely need in the Indo-Pacific in the event of a crisis involving China. They include reconnaissance, strategic airlift, air defence systems, combat aircraft, amphibious naval capabilities, and long-range and cruise missiles.
But what is important here is not just armaments but also genuine political issues. For example, how might European NATO partners react if, under a Trump II administration, the US were to participate much less in consensual decision-making in the NATO Council or even try to play NATO allies off against one another? What would European allies do if America finally gave up its “liberal” understanding of leadership within the Alliance and behaved like a “normal” great power?
Europe must therefore unite on defense to take on Russia. Why?
Russian policy under Putin’s leadership is driven, above all, by the desire to destroy the European peace order based on the liberal-democratic values enshrined in the 1990 Charter of Paris. Moscow sees the emergence or consolidation of liberal democratic societies in Russia’s neighbourhood as a threat.
What is being proposed here is the same as all the think tanks, Scholz’s Zeitenwende, and in the speeches by Foreign Minister Annelena Baerbock that Germany will lead the fight in Europe for the “rules-based order” while the US focuses on China. The paper continues:
Ultimately, the decline of Pax Americana also raises the question of what role liberal-democratic values could and should play in foreign policy. German and European advocates of a values-based foreign policy could lose an important backer – namely, America – in the coming years. As far as the European security order is concerned, the situation is quite clear: the conflict with Russia is only superficially about territorial claims and military power relations; its real cause lies in irreconcilable values about Europe’s internal and external order. From the perspective of the EU and the European NATO states, Europe’s security is therefore inextricably linked to the defence of liberal-democratic values.
Standing up for values outside Europe should therefore focus on those norms, institutions and rules that directly affect the peaceful coexistence of states: international and maritime law, multilateralism and, consequently, the often-cited “rules-based order” at the regional and global level. These principles are also supported out of self-interest by authoritarian states that are not major powers and therefore are confronted by more powerful neighbours. However, none of this changes the sobering fact that without the United States, it would be much more difficult to protect the remnants of the rules-based world order.
And thus the report concludes by doubling down on the failed strategy of a liberal-democratic “rules-based order” also known as American hegemony.
In a paper intended to be about the rethinking of Germany’s relationship with the US, we get regurgitated talking points from the likes of the Atlantic Council that amounts to a continuation of German vassalage to Washington.
It brought to mind an Aurelian comment on a past post:
…After WW2, Germany was understandably a little unpopular with its immediate neighbours. The Adenauer generation recognised that the only way back to international respectability was through membership of multilateral institutions and through, effectively, giving much of its sovereignty away to others, such that it was not seen as a threat. Germany was therefore a member of the European Coal and Steel Community from 1951, and of the EEC from the start in 1958. German remilitarisation, grudgingly accepted by other European states, actually turned out to be a better solution than the original idea of a Western Treaty Organisation as a permanent military alliance against Germany. All German troops were put under NATO control, and the Bundeswehr was not allowed to have its own operational HQ, and so could not conduct national missions. This, together with the subordinate relationship to France under the 1962 Elysée Treaty, was a kind of voluntary masochism, which helped to deflect very real fears of German revanchism. (Those fears, incidentally, are a large part of the explanation of why European states were keen to continue with NATO after the end of the Cold War). This subservience produced several generations of German diplomats and military officers (and I met many of them) whose greatest concern was to be seen as “good Europeans” and “good members of NATO.” Whilst they didn’t agree with the US on everything, a German government which followed the US lead could never be criticised.
It’s changed a lot since then, of course, with the change in the balance of the Franco-German relationship and the complete transformation of the European security scene. It’s been observed especially that, on the rebound after decades of good behaviour, the Germans don’t have the diplomatic reflexes they really need, and risk getting themselves into an incredible mess. The existential problem of what Germany even is, never solved in its history, means that for many in positions of authority, the best and easiest solution is to follow the US, because that worked well in the past.
It’s not working anymore.
As evidenced by the SWP report, German elites are in a mess they don’t know how (or don’t want) to get out of and react by digging deeper. As Alex Merouris and Alex Christoforou pointed out yesterday on The Duran, Germany is now trying to shift all the blame for the country’s dire economic situation squarely on Russia.
The leader of the main opposition and the odds-on-favorite to be the next chancellor, Friedrich Merz is backing the idea of launching German Taurus missiles into Russia from Ukraine.
And Berlin is among the most enthusiastic backers of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and wider war in the Middle East. To say nothing of the moral bankruptcy or violations of international law, such a policy is bad for Germany in Europe. More conflict on the EU periphery is already adding to the European energy crisis and has the potential to do much worse. It will also mean millions of refugees heading for Europe, which will add to woes of underfunded and overstrained social services no matter how many deals are worked out with Turkey, Albania and others to host refugees in prisons.
Here is Germany’s foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, granddaughter of the Nazi Waldemar Baerbock and promoter of what she calls a “feminist” foreign policy, making the case that Israel has the right to kill women and children:
German Foreign Minister Baerbock defends Israel’s killings of Palestinian civilians. “Civilian places” lose “their protected status” because “terrorists abuse that”, she claims. This is of course nonsense under international law. The International Criminal Court accuses Israel of… pic.twitter.com/Qr8GdVo0bH
— Tarek Baé (@Tarek_Bae) October 14, 2024
Her championing of genocide brings to mind the warnings Diana Johnstone who was press secretary of the Green Group in the European Parliament from 1989 to 1996 and saw firsthand the transformation of the German Greens from a group opposed to the Cold War to the warmongering crazies it is today. In an interview with Black Agenda Report back before the German election she had this to say about Baerbock:
Frankly, I hope they don’t [win] because they are the most dangerous when it comes to foreign relations. This woman—Annalena Baerbock—she has no real political past. She’s 40 years old, and she hasn’t even been in the party very long. She has very little experience, but she’s well trained in American and NATO foreign policy. And she has been rapidly shoved to the top of the party, becoming a candidate for Chancellor simply on the basis of that. So in fact, people who are really on the left in Germany consider her and the German Green Party extremely dangerous. They’re most likely to stumble us into a major war between world powers.
Sadly, the Greens fit right in with the belligerence of the other major parties and collective wisdom of German elites. It’s a truly remarkable turn over the past few decades. Germany was one of the US “allies” that said no to Iraq and watched Washington bungle that job, as well as Afghanistan and its regime change efforts in Syria and now, before the US is even finished retreating from Ukraine, Germany is following Washington into another more horrible disaster in the Middle East.
Will the Alternatives Be Blocked?
Two insurgent parties, which both argue for rapprochement with Russia and more sovereignty for Germany in general made major gains in recent state elections, but they’ve struggled to turn that into real power thus far — and they’re likely to face similar roadblocks in the Bundestag following next year’s elections despite polls showing them in strong positions.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD), a party on the right (think ethno-nationalist, climate change denial, EU and NATO skepticism, trickle down economics, and some Nazi admirers thrown in for good measure), remains isolated behind a “firewall” intended to keep the party out of government. The AfD has been able to capitalize on widespread disenchantment with record levels of immigration that comes at the same time as a shrinking economy, declining living standards, an energy and housing crisis, and social spending cuts. Other parties like the front-running Christian Democratic Union are increasingly shifting towards AfD positions except of course for the NATO and EU skepticism and Russia detente.
After years of warnings that the AfD is a threat to democracy — a threat the state responded to by placing the party under surveillance — other parties are now resorting to more desperate measures to protect democracy. Due to the firewall against the AfD, those parties are being forced to form coalitions with the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), an essentially one-woman populist party formed nine months ago with an anti-war, working class platform.
BSW, however, is insisting that any coalition partner must take a clear position against the deployment of US medium-range missiles in Germany. There are no takers yet. At least in the case of Saxony, that could mean new elections if no coalition is formed by February.
In the state of Thuringia the AfD won the September 1 election with 32.8 percent of the vote. Here’s what happened next according to a September 27 report from European Conservative:
The party does not have a majority to form a government, and will remain in opposition due to the cordon sanitaire imposed by the other parties. However, it does have the right to nominate a candidate for the position of speaker, which it attempted on Thursday, the first session of parliament following the elections.
However, its decision to put forward Wiebke Muhsal for speaker of the chamber was dismissed by the other parties—the centre-right CDU, the left-wing nationalist Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht, the hard-left Die Linke, and the Social Democrats—saying she has little chance of commanding a majority. But the AfD refused to consider changes to the rules that would allow other parties to put forward competing candidates, and adjourned the meeting.
The CDU then turned to Thuringia’s constitutional court, which ruled against the AfD, paving the way for the CDU candidate to become the parliament’s speaker. The CDU is negotiating with the BSW and Scholz’s centrist pro-war Social Democratic Party (SPD) in an effort to build a coalition.
Despite the media, spooks, and all levers of government being used against the AfD and to a lesser extent BSW, they continue to make headway. In the case of BSW, they are currently being boosted due to the fact they’re the only major party that is opposed to the state’s support of genocide:
BSW of Wagenknecht is the only relevant party in Germany that speaks out against Germany’s complicity in Israel’s genocide.
I am not surprised that BSW is polling increasingly well among German Muslims who don’t want their vote to contribute to the extermination of Palestinians. https://t.co/xCg6PJ6mAI
— Nassreddin 🍉 نصر الدين (@Nassreddin2002) October 10, 2024
As the BSW finds more support from voters, the government might be looking to crack down on the party in response. Foreign Minister Baerbock recently claimed in an interview that the successes of the BSW were “the product of Russian propaganda.” Baerbock, as foreign minister, is supposed to remain neutral on matters of domestic politics, but has not faced any discipline.
Her statements come at the same time that German spooks — both abroad and domestic services — are claiming they need more money and more power in order to tackle threats from Moscow.
And so it goes.
Both Biden and Steinmeier, in an effort to make the death and destruction their governments have unleashed sound noble, quoted from the Irish poet Seamus Heaney in their Berlin remarks — Biden from “The Cure at Troy” and Steinheimer from “Republic of Conscience.”
Perhaps a more fitting Heaney piece for the regimes in Berlin and Washington to reflect on would be “Oysters”:
Our shells clacked on the plates.
My tongue was a filling estuary,
My palate hung with starlight:
As I tasted the salty Pleiades
Orion dipped his foot into the water.Alive and violated,
They lay on their bed of ice:
Bivalves: the split bulb
And philandering sigh of ocean
Millions of them ripped and shucked and scattered.We had driven to that coast
Through flowers and limestone
And there we were, toasting friendship,
Laying down a perfect memory
In the cool of thatch and crockery.Over the Alps, packed deep in hay and snow,
The Romans hauled their oysters south to Rome:
I saw damp panniers disgorge
The frond-lipped, brine-stung
Glut of privilegeAnd was angry that my trust could not repose
In the clear light, like poetry or freedom
Leaning in from sea. I ate the day
Deliberately, that its tang
Might quicken me all into verb, pure verb.
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I prefer W H Auden’s “Domesday Song”
Jumbled in one common box
Of their dark stupidity,
Orchid, swan and Caesar lie;
Time that tires of everyone
Has corroded all the locks
Thrown away the key for fun.
In its cleft the torrent mocks
Prophets who in days gone by
Made a profit on each cry,
Persona grata now with none;
And a jackass language shocks
Poets who can only pun.
Silence settles on the clocks;
Nursing mothers point a sly
Index finger at a sky,
Crimson in the setting sun;
In the valley of the fox
Gleams the barrel of a gun.
Once we could have made the docks,
Now it is too late to fly,
Once too often you and I
Did what we should not have done;
Round the rampant rugged rocks
Rude and ragged rascals run.
Says all that needs to be said about now.
in the nightmare of the dark
all the dogs of Europe bark…
The level of perversion in the German political establishment makes the Aristocrats-joke look like the picture of a morally sound family.
No mention of the rip roaring success of the Immigration Policy?
A different set of stanzas come to mind, and we know who the oysters are and who the walrus.
It seems a shame,’ the Walrus said,
To play them such a trick,
After we’ve brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!’
The Carpenter said nothing but
The butter’s spread too thick!’
I weep for you,’ the Walrus said:
I deeply sympathize.’
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.
O Oysters,’ said the Carpenter,
You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?’
But answer came there none —
And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d eaten every one.”
“think ethno-nationalist”
In how far?
And in how far the CDU/CSU are not?
(Remember the old slogan: “No party “right” from us.”)
And in how does Scholz´s interview with SPIEGEL from last year where ideas of “remigration” were floated – if I remember correctly – differ here?
p.s. most worrying I guess are those 31.8 for CDU/CSU. Which shows you who owns the media and who directs them (including state media.)
p.p.s Thanks for bringing back the great Diana Johnstone.
(OT: I would be curious about her position on Srebrenica today in light of people like Chris Hedges.)
CDU was built on Catholic Germany as Adenauer’s reconstruction of old Zentrum Party. It portrayed SPD as Moscow-aligned because in Soviet Zone under Dahrendorf it was co-opted by Ulbricht’s Communists and dissident members ended up in Bautzen.
In West Kurt Schumacher was kept out of power although unlike Adenauer he had been in Concentration Camp where he lost his arm.
Merkel is daughter of a Communist-aligned Protestant pastor with top links to GDR regime. She was infiltrated into CDU by Stasi behind Demokratischer Aufbruch their front party in 1990 – assisted by Lothar de Maizière son of her father’s associate and Lothar himself was last Premier of GDR
CDU ceased to be Catholic henceforth
CSU was creation of Franz Josef Strauß who kept the right inside big tent because he was former-SS and trusted be be a gatekeeper. He died decades ago and CSU is not what it was despite Söder pretending to be strong man.
Germany is fractured. It has the largest number of parties in Bundestag since Weimar Republic and everywhere coalitions are necessary. It was Greens who held kingmaker power as FDP disintegrated – now it is BSW the female face of GDR totalitarianism
BSW was built up by media to drain AfD votes in East. It was a created party and received €5 million from a couple in Mecklenburg who own a stage-lighting business whereas Greens are funded by US billionaires
As for media – most regional papers are run by Funke Media. Süddeutsche is left-aligned. SPD is biggest owner of newspapers and richest party. Bertelsmann and Burda own a few titles – but Kohlberg Kravis Roberts had a big stake in Welt and Bild until spinning off newspapers.
Newspapers became very aligned with regime on 8 Oct 2008 when Merkel had a meeting in Berlin and they agreed not to create bank runs by reporting the financial meltdown in US and U.K. – thus media became aligned thereafter and newspaper journalists are in many cases in a secret government payroll including TV types.
Finance Minister Lindner seems to marry leading journalists sequentially
Politicians date journalists more than is healthy
“There’s also an enormous housing crisis in the country with no improvement in sight.”
There’s a global housing crisis.
The wages of neoliberalism are death.
Or to put that in a slightly different way, the wages of Neo-liberalism are planetary extinction.
“But the three pillars of Pax Americana – US military strength, the country’s economic openness and the liberal-democratic foundations of American foreign policy – have, in fact, been crumbling for some time.”
There are 4 pillars and number 1 is neoliberal economics. It’s not crumbling around the world.
Fair point. Maybe that helps explain all the fighting over who gets to collect the rent.
as long as germany is locked into the free trade zone known as the E.U., it cannot ever recover.
time to get out, let the eastern half of germany have autonomy, because it really is a different country now. let the east germans rearm and institute socialism to stave of any crazies like the poles.
Berlin and eastern Germany as terminus / western hub of the New Silk Road system — sounds good to me. Win-win, unlike the present setup of “heads Washington and Wall Street win, tails Europeans lose.”
The super rich in Germany, as well as in every other Western country, believe they will remain so if and only if the geopolitical bloc in which they have invested their wealth prevails. If you understand this, you also understand that for them it is an existential struggle that cannot accept compromises because for the privileged people this holds now and always: “People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right. The sensitivity of the poor to injustice is a trivial thing compared with that of the rich.” J.K.Galbraith
“The super rich in Germany, as well as in every other Western country, believe they will remain so if and only if the geopolitical bloc in which they have invested their wealth prevails.”
The super rich places other than the West have invested their wealth in the same geopolital bloc.
One of the reasons the world is watching another genoicide on Tik Tok and other places.
Excellent post this as usual. The guys at The Duran were doing an episode yesterday about Germany called “Germany blames Russia for economic woes” because Scholz and Merz were blaming Russia for cutting off Germany’s oil and gas. Scholz must have a good supply of gas left though to do this much gaslighting. They were ultimately blaming Germany’s woes on Mama Merkle because when she was in office, she had removed anybody with ability that might threaten or replace her. So when she left office finally, that left only inferior people to take her place like Scholz and Habeck and Baerbock. And for some reason, most people in Germany are not onboard with a nuclear war with Russia or an Israeli genocide against the Palestinians. Germany use to be one of the most stable countries in Europe and one of the most peaceful. But because of the present government, the future in Germany is not looking good-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMK7a7l0ldw (16:10 mins)
Blaming Merkel for current German leadership makes no sense, she is CDU/CSU while Scholz is SPD, while Habeck and Baerbock are Greens. She had as much say in the leadership of those parties as Nancy Pelosi has in the Republican Party.
Merkel was a very capable politician, which is why she remained in power for 16 years. Her economic policy was based on manufacturing fueled by cheap Russian resources and was very successful building German prosperity and economic power. I feel that if she was still in office it’s unlikely that Ukrainian shitshow would have escalated (although she was party to the Minsk agreements and deception related to them) and NordStream would have not been blown up.
She was an obedient, capable and faithful vassal yes. But I would imagine many beg to differ. Speculating and wishful thinking don’t help. Recall (thanks to Wikileaks Julian Assange, and Ed Snoiwden) that her phones were tapped for years by the US NSA. The BND knew about it, yet did not inform her. Merkel squawked a bit, but could do nothing.The BND is a branch of the CIA and she knows it.
Voislav: you might also recall an interview with Merkel when she explicitly said that she did NOT enforce Minsk 2 on Ukraine. She is indeed an integral part of the Ukrainian shitshow.
Merkel was in coalition with SPD most of time and Scholz was her deputy. Merkel is more Green than CDU of you listen to people who knew her in GDR.
She has zero interest in manufacturing and industry had little influence in her era compared to Schroeder. Merkel transferred government spending to social and cut investment in infrastructure which is why Bundesbahn is a joke and concrete bridges are collapsing across the nation
The cutting of infrastructure investments happened before Merkel. Kohl did it. Neither Schroeder nor Merkel fixed it, though. Nor did Scholz, unless
bridges brokethere were clearly visible damages.And the demise of the Bahn started in the 90s, under Kohl, with that brilliant idea to privatize it and redirect bahn money to the automobile infrastructure. Neither Schroeder nor Merkel fixed it, though. Nor did Scholz, who installed a public transport hater as minister for transport .
Not a single major party (CDU, CSU, SPD, Grüne, FDP) did anything more than symbolic policy regarding public transport and bahn in the last 30 years.
The bahn demise was a cross party project, with the only big difference between the parties being the number of crocodile tears shed.
The same is true for infrastructure in general, of course.
Many thanks. The present political economy of Germany can only be understood as an instance of mass mania in which the political, administrative, financial and corporate classes have collectively succumbed to a species of Stockholm syndrome. The way in which those elites are interwoven (for example, on the supervisory boards of major firms) has perhaps made the collective capitulation to the syndrome all the more likely, and all the more devastating.
Post-war West Germany had the enormous advantages of: (i) being perceived by Washington as crucial for the economic rehabilitation of Europe (in a way that France or the UK were not); (ii) not having any significant external obligations like the UK or France; and (iii) being relieved of its internal public debts by means of Erhard’s 1948 currency reform, and of much of its external debts by means of the London Debt Agreement of 1953 (which the US effectively imposed upon West Germany’s creditors): http://www.econ.yale.edu/growth_pdf/cdp880.pdf; https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/economic-consequences-1953-london-debt-agreement, or https://www.lse.ac.uk/Economic-History/Assets/Documents/WorkingPapers/Economic-History/2008/WP113.pdf. As Albrecht and Eichengreen noted, savings rates in the UK and West Germany were about the same during the 1950s. However, the UK received no debt relief and was obliged to dissipate large amounts of capital on overseas commitments (chiefly military, often under US suasion, but also under the Colonial Development & Welfare Act 1945, which sought to re-create the political economy of empire, in which the UK would export capital to its colonies in exchange for discounted raw materials). Over the course of the 1950s and 1960s this led to significant divergence between the economic trajectories of the UK and West Germany. West German success bred further success:
https://www.cambridge.org/us/universitypress/subjects/history/economic-history/economic-consequences-war-west-germanys-growth-miracle-after-1945?format=PB and https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/trading-power/84EAC252742D5EDEDCF5376820455AB0
However, that success carried with it the seeds of subsequent failure. West German prosperity was in large measure a bequest of the US. It also enabled West Germany to free ride upon US patronage. The heavy military expenditures of the US in West Germany weighed on the US current account and so helped subvert Bretton Woods. In addition, under Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson the claims of the State Department (which effectively functioned as West Germany’s agent in Washington) and security state overrode the vocal opposition of the Agriculture, Commerce and Labor Departments: even as the US indulged West Germany financially, Adenauer was working to construct a relationship with France which would result in an asymmetric trading relationship, in which US manufactures to the EC/EU would be discriminated against by the common external tariff, but German exports to the US would not receive like treatment. This aggravated the pressure on the US current account and, although the DM was revalued, it was not sufficient to relieve pressure on the BWS: https://ies.princeton.edu/pdf/E122.pdf. The reason why Acheson had promoted European integration was to forge a United States of Europe which would mirror the USA and function as a vent for US manufacturing surpluses and so prevent a relapse into Depression; what it got instead was a bid to revive European power (inherently at the expense of US supremacy) with the US functioning as a vent for German manufacturing surpluses. Nonetheless, the indulgence of the State Department prevailed because of the strategic centrality of West Germany in Europe and its front line status against the Warsaw Pact.
However, what the US giveth, the US can taketh away. Trump chafed against the free ride on the US defence shield, but it has been the supposedly pro-European Biden who has effectively exploded the foundations of the free ride: (i) cheap energy inputs (Germany must now pay a premium for US/Canadian LNG, or Russian oil marked up by India); (ii) the asymmetric trading relationship (courtesy of the IRA); and (iii) China as a supplementary vent to German manufactures (courtesy of containment mk 2 and China racing up the value chain). Germany now seems likely to be asked to foot the bill for Ukrainian reconstruction. All these pressures make it almost impossible for schemes to resuscitate European autonomy, like the Draghi plan, to be implemented.
Germany succumbed to Stockholm syndrome because it gradually came to realise that European autonomy is essentially counterfeit, and always was. When push came to shove in 2022 German elites realised that they must, perforce, cling to nurse for fear of something [far] worse. In the past the US could afford to indulge German (and European) free-riding. That it will no longer do so is perhaps a symptom of increasing US weakness and that if zero sum game strategies targeted at China seem unlikely to work because of the relative impregnability of China, then they may at least work against altogether softer targets like those in western Europe. What the US makes it can also unmake.
Another post today talks about how people in NC are trying to make life work again. Conversely one could argue that the other major news item at the moment–the election–is about ordinary people trying to toss a monkey wrench into the infernal machine that has been cobbled into life by our elites. Perhaps Europe is turning in that direction as well. Of course Trump and the Afd are no solution and perhaps even the latest sheepdogs for the sheeple. But I doubt that the elites, who are not so elite, are quite that subtle. Trampoline champ Baerbock doesn’t seem very bright at all. And her ilk sure seem afraid of even the merest gestures toward populism.
I have a German friend who has lived in the US for many years and is a hard-core Atlanticist. When I suggested that the US bombed Nordstream he reacted like I told him I believed in Bigfoot. So it’s not just the German establishment
my same experience with a few astute German citizens I know. One said: ‘I thought the Ukrainians did it’ ….my reply:..okay, but who ‘owns’ them?
Quite a few Europeans cam’t get it into their heads that the US is waging a war against EU with Russia as a figleaf.
180.000 odd dead palestinians, 700,000 odd dead or wounded ukrainians, 3 maybe 400,000 dead or wounded russians.
A real Hero that biden.
Biden is a dementia-addled puppet, who can’t find his way out of a room without his handlers.Don’t forget the Jr. Partner in Crime, the U bloody K! and the EU/NATO-stan vassals.
Germany appears even more subservient than ever. And what’s more, no matter who wins the sham elections in the US, the Genocide will continue, the Washington Consensus will continue. The housing crisis will continue, elder-care crisis, debt peonage, environmental crises, health care crisis. etc will only worsen. Same as it ever was for decades, but most engage in the same activity while expecting different results.
Similar to the German public, the US public is subject to a bombardment of misinformation and psychological manipulation every day. Ed Bernays called this “engineering consent”. and the propaganda/public relations messages are more sophisticated than ever. The vast majority of the roughly 50% of eligible voters who actually “vote” will willingly choose a candidate that undermines their interests. That is what I call “engineering consent”. Even Bernays would be impressed. Media-induced Stockholm Syndrome
Even on NC, commenters have posted they’ll vote for Trump. That’s how well it works.
Sad but true. Even well-informed, highly intelligent people fall victim.
Well, people are angry and the middle-finger candidate is right there waiting.
Will he act against their interests? Yes, though many people now seem to have an interest in seeing brainwashed heads explode, too.
I can just hear the elites in Berlin who are profiting at their own country’s demise giggling:
“US President Joe Biden received Germany’s highest Order of Merit on Friday.”
It’s so “in the face” of the German public—it could be a “let them eat cake” moment. Then again, it’s Germany, not France. Apparently, lots of ruin remains.
Steinmeier reversed course on all his policies as Foreign Minister – he turned on Russia, turned in Iran, aligned himself with US whereas in 2016-17 he had been quite the opposite as he had in 2008 when he opposed Missile Bases in Poland and Romania
Quite why he reversed polarity is unclear
As for Thuringia
How did the vote to get rid of the West German Ramelow and his Linke Party – itself the renamed SED which ran GDR in coalition with SPD and CDU – end up with CDU and SPD forming a coalition with BSW which is the Sahra Wagenknecht Fan Club
Sahra Wagenknecht is a Communist from GDR who has never held any elected office outside the Bundestag but split off her Linke Faction to form her own splinter party
Now in Saxony snd Thuringia voters are going to get the old GDR Party system resurrected. Merkel sit off the Conservative Wing of CDU into AfD to get a CDU able to work with Greens
It is old Communist tactic to expel conservatives from party just as Lenin did at 2nd International and make your faction the main party
BRICS suggests that neoliberal economics is crumbling with all deliberate speed….
My feeling is that the narrative on Russia-Ukraine is starting to shift in Germany, in part because of Wagenknecht’s willingness to publicly point to NATO’s blame for crossing Russian red lines. On migration, too, the narrative has been shifting dramatically. So there is some cause for very modest hope. But the misinformation remain rampant.
How do you know what Germans think ?
Media is controlled and blogging barely exists. Free thought can be punished.
It is a society where opinions are dangerous and freedom to support the government narrative is guaranteed but criticism is not wanted. Wagenknecht says nothing special for East Germans who were never indoctrinated by US propaganda as in West
There is little critical thinking in Germany more Catechisms. Even reporting of US election is counterfactual and of Ukraine and of Israel. It is a bubble reality. You have no idea how deranged German media is with focused hate campaigns and bigotry
Those who speak English learn more and the others suspect something is wrong and are angry all the time.
What do you expect after 80 years of brain laundry? Actually, taking that into account, there is a bit of independent thinking and resistance. From abroad it is of course difficult to judge. It isn’t even very easy living within the country, given the fact that the citizen financed media (ÖRR) that are supposed to report unbiased news are spouting transatlantic propagand like never before, including lavish omission of facts and outright lies. So people used to trusting these media have a hard time telling what’s fake and what’s true.
There are a number of independent bloggers and news sites. They got defamed during covid as people gone nuts. Which was quite a smart tactic of the goverment: reporting only about irrationally arguing people and not about those with sound arguments. As it turns out, some of the irrational stuff was on instigation by the usual suspects, BND, VS and the like. So everyone speaking up against the government has to overcome this hurdle of being considered nuts.
And, anyone with an audience of more than one has to be careful. Legislation is increasingly restrictive, widening the area of possible offences to the point of no limits. Closed bank accounts, house searches, detainment, indictments etc. give those who know about it an orwellian impression. The point is, almost nobody knows about it, because it is not reported at all or in a completely distorted way.
The latest scandal in alternative media is a politician interpreting recent polling figures on free speech as great “more than half of citizens feel free to speak out”, when the actual figures have deteriorated from 78% in 1990 to 40% in 2023. 2024 it is 7% more. Which still isn’t “more than half” and on the whole awful. Gives you an impression of who is in charge here.
Just one addendum:
Blogging never really took off in germany. This is, partially, a cultural thing, i think – but partially anchored in our law, which defined “press” still quite strictly in the 200x and early/middle 201x years. A blog or independent news site just never could be sure to get the protection the law granted to the press.
But it could, and still can, be sure to not get any protection from our press.
btw: not only one german chancellor of the last 30 years had very good connections to the press – or it’s owners.
Regarding “quite a smart tactic of the goverment”: our press would have done that without any government involvement.
Regards, Uwe
“80 years of brain laundry” implies that 81 years ago everything was a OK.