Translation of Ernst Nolte's "The Federal Republic - A Society Without Statehood" (a piece from "Die Weltpolitik in Deutschland")
Nolte discusses the state of German society and the "Bundesrepublik" as a state and its geopolitical function in the aftermath of WWII.
The Federal Republic - A Society Without Statehood
A state in the most pronounced sense of the term is a society that knows what it is in the context of the world and wills itself as such. "World" here is understood as the "world of humans" or even as the "cosmos." A society can only will itself if it is organized in such a way that it possesses the ability for armed self-assertion. The knowing will that constitutes statehood can be limited to a small layer within society, but all individuals can also participate in it almost equally. The phenomenon of those who are without a share in the state organizing themselves to a certain extent and opposing the state, either as "society" or as a state-hostile "party," is a historical exception, the European exception, as one might call the fact.
However, this fact is not static and does not mean mere coexistence. Thus, there are more and less state-like societies. An absolutely non-state society is a mere ideal type that does not exist in reality. It is, however, easily conceivable: a group of people living on a hardly accessible island, without contact with the world and without relation to the past or future, existing only for the present well-being of its members. Thomas More's “Utopia” is oriented towards this ideal type, and in historical reality, at certain times, Crete or Sybaris might have come close to it.
Likewise, a state free of society is also only an ideal type: a group founded on past legislation or proclamation and directed towards future security or expansion, which transcends the possible claims of all individuals. Sparta and early Islam represent this ideal type Thus, there is no society that is completely without statehood, and the Federal Republic of Germany cannot be such a society either. But compared to France or the German Empire, the Federal Republic from its inception was a society without statehood, possessing a self-understanding as complex as it was fragile, and simultaneously determined by a reality that was far from congruent.
The earliest state concept of the Federal Republic, without which its foundation would have been impossible, was that of the "core state" and, with less activist emphasis, that of the "magnet." The core state concept was highly irredentist: the Federal Republic was the core of the future Germany, and the Soviet Zone, as well as the areas beyond the Oder and Neisse rivers, were Germany's Irredenta. Hence, the Federal Republic was a new Prussia, Piedmont, or Serbia. But the existence and specific situation of the Federal Republic were precisely the result of extreme irredentism, which had led from the "small Germany" of 1937 to the "greater Germany" of 1939 and practically to the "Greater Germanic Reich" of 1941. Therefore, the Federal Republic, to be seriously considered a core state, would have had to be a state in potency, yet no need was stronger than the urge to distinguish itself from the predecessor state, which had indeed been such a state in potency.
This fundamental contradiction was linked to a serious ambiguity regarding what the “Irredenta” actually comprised, that is, what was to be annexed to the core state. Was the state's goal solely the recovery of the Soviet occupation zone, or was the old East Germany also in view, or did all the areas inhabited by Germans up to 1945 constitute the “Irredenta”, so that the Sudeten territories, in particular, were included? While it was initially excluded that the demands of the Sudeten Germans could be fully met, it was also impossible, for compelling reasons of the parliamentary system, to simply disregard the votes of hundreds of thousands of citizens. Thus, within the framework of the core state conception, three conflicting perspectives emerged.
Parties stood side by side and potentially against each other: the realpolitik Bismarckians (as they could be called), who only sought the annexation of the GDR; the principled Bismarckians, who wanted to restore the German Reich within the borders of 1937; and finally the pan-Germanists, who appealed to the principle of self-determination and the principle of the illegitimacy of expulsions. The first faction took the historical consequences of the Third Reich seriously but had to forgo the democratic principle of annexation and expulsion prohibitions; it was still extraordinarily weak in 1952. The second faction combined principle steadfastness with ahistorical pretension: no German government should have renounced a large part of the Reich territory before a peace treaty, but every German government had to know that the Germany of 1937, whose concrete shape was historically accidental and not natural, had become, after the most extraordinary historical upheaval, even more a mere "starting point" than, for example, Poland of 1921. The third faction had no prospects, for even if its representatives were of untouchable reputation and its claims just as possible, it remained an evident truth for both East and West that Hitler had seized these claims and pulled them into his downfall. Therefore, this faction was the loneliest in the world. Nevertheless, the Federal Republic was founded on a coalition of these three “state and state-goal views”, and the loss of even one would have jeopardized its existence. But the obvious difficulties of this core state theory soon led to emphasizing the idea of the "magnet," because it was less militant and more passive. It could be much more easily connected with the popular idea that the Federal Republic must be an "exemplary social state," which would, due to its attractiveness, be granted what the core state theory demanded without special political effort.
Emphasizing the "constitutional state" more strongly made the transition to a completely different concept. She was not developed into the only conception that was “in pari” with the reality of the Cold War: that a societal system, which was by no means ideal in the sense of the "free world," but historically far from exhausted and fundamental to world history, had to assert itself so that a self-recognition and self-limitation of the neither demonic nor simply despotically inefficient but comprehensible opponent could be possible and the world as a whole could enter into a different state.
Thus, the state existence of the Federal Republic only came into being through the coalition of different and fundamentally sharply opposed conceptions of the state, each of which renounced a decisive self-expression. The ever-present memory of National Socialism moderated the core state theory both internally and externally: When the essential central criminal police was established, the responsible interior minister felt compelled to assure that it would not be a Gestapo, and when a well-known radio commentator, entirely in line with the dam theory, proposed closing the borders to the GDR, the outrage was widespread. Only the radical opponents of each side considered the opposing view to be dominant and attacked it fiercely: For the SRP and the "German Community," the "Bonn system" was a system of politicians of renunciation and traitors who had nothing to do with the "people" as temporary "rulers"; the KPD and the GDR, on the other hand, continuously attacked the "revanchists" and "imperialists" in Bonn, who were determined to forcibly annex the GDR to the Federal Republic and even ignite the flames of a world war. In truth, the validation of either characterization would have been identical with the end of the Federal Republic: A genuine Confederation of the Rhine state would not have found the support of those nationalists and Bismarckians on which it depended; an authentic core state would have so terrified the world that the policy of “West integration” would have been impossible from both sides. Just by the existence of the opposing views. In this way, the two radical theses were refuted, at least for the present. Each rightly drew the consequence of a decisive stance, but the Federal Republic was essentially the inconsistent and undecided state, and thus an extreme form of the Western principle. Precisely because of this, it almost entirely lacked a fundamental characteristic of all states, including Western states: the pride in statehood, the most powerful and defining pride that exists. American children place their hands on their hearts every morning to salute the flag, and Lenin rests visibly in his glass coffin; "la France" is, for the French, mother, lover, and world all in one; pride in Sedan and the event in the Versailles Hall of Mirrors carried the Bismarckian Reich, and even the sharpest criticism it encountered was thereby both respectable and merely partial. In contrast, a "National Holiday" in the Federal Republic remained merely a semblance, and the criticism came equally strongly from both the right and the left. On the other hand, even with the worst will, it could not be denied that the self-assertion of the SPD—however one might judge it—was an event that deserved the designation "world-historical," for it corresponded exactly to the type of what was happening generally in the Western world, though no one can know if this type would have remained dominant had this party not asserted itself. Equally, it was beyond doubt that the foundation of the Federal Republic was far more fitting for the Cold War period, if this was a historical reality, than the admission of a neutralized small Germany between the Rhine and the Oder, which would have been controlled by the war allies in precarious harmony. Finally, it was evident that the existence of the Federal Republic, despite everything, was based on a much stronger consensus than, for example, the existence of Yugoslavia and even Czechoslovakia after 1918.
Out of all these contradictions and difficulties, a way out was most easily found by emphasizing individual goals and interests. Early on, people spoke in rough imagery of the "swelling wave" that washed over the people. After 10 years of rationing, the now flowing-in goods and luxuries from around the world—from bananas to oranges and from American cigarettes to Scotch whisky—were valued far beyond their market worth as promises of a better world, especially since there was a widespread awareness that fellow countrymen in the East continued to lack all these good things. Even more, people were filled with the desire to finally escape the confines of often overcrowded apartments, to be "for themselves" again, and to leave behind the remnants of collective and barrack life from the war years. Although housing shortages remained significant, state-supported housing construction, starting in 1953, ranked comparatively high globally, with over 500,000 new apartments built annually. After meeting the most urgent needs, increasing amounts of money were spent on the "travel wave," and the opportunities it offered were not perceived with bored routine but matched the "exploration of the world" after years of isolation, which the first newspapers and magazines after 1945 had symbolically and still very abstractly set in motion.
For the first time, automobiles—after the unfulfilled promises of the National Socialist era—came within the financial reach of the average person; the automobile industry became the favorite industry of the Germans, continually setting new production records. The fundamental prerequisite for this was the constant rise in the real income of workers, which more than doubled within a decade, while the gross national product, with the highest growth rate in Europe, did not quite double. The "without-me" sentiment largely meant simply rejecting political claims and defending the priority of private needs; thus, it was politically difficult to exploit. Although there was no shortage of criticism regarding income inequality in the 1950s, and by 1957, there was already discussion of the “question of ownership”. Successful authors posed the question: "Who owns Germany?" But the old industrial families made little impression, and it was the new figures who drew much more public attention. These were individuals who had created their vast enterprises from nothing or nearly nothing, and thus were seen by many as extreme symbols of personal rise and success: department store owner Helmut Horten, newspaper publisher Axel Springer, and radio manufacturer Max Grundig. Time had evidently also taken its toll on the old families: The Krupp family, long the archetype of the "cannon kings," refused to produce any armaments after its head, Alfried Krupp—convicted in a legally highly questionable process of "war crimes" instead of his father—returned from prison.
And beyond all complaints about individual cases, despite all difficulties, every individual could perceive the fundamental economic and over-economic fact: that in the Federal Republic, as in the entire West, a significantly higher proportion of the social product was allocated to consumption compared to the East. Therefore, talk of the "affluent society" and its unprecedentedly rich and diverse consumer opportunities was not unfounded. Certainly, there were still pockets of poverty and failure, but they were almost entirely overshadowed by the still very numerous refugee camps, for which the state system was not responsible. By the end of 1953, amid the sharpest party conflicts over rearmament, a foreign observer could write with unmistakable disapproval: "Criticism and opposition dissipate in the atmosphere of comfort and security that permeates the new Germany." In the actual life experience of the vast majority, the concept of the "free state" was thus far more dominant for the residents of the Federal Republic than the concept of the dam or even that of the core state.
But precisely this practical well-being, this tacit consensus in the transition from a period of scarcity to one of abundance, only intensified the discomfort felt even by those writers and intellectuals who were not radical political enemies of the state. At the beginning of the 1960s, several anthologies appeared, in which the main lines of criticism from the "left" became particularly clear—although it had already been articulated in scattered places during the 1950s. The criticism mainly addresses the unfulfilled hopes of 1945, when culture flourished while stomachs were empty, and from where a movement of the defeated might have emerged, "a belief of those who renounce violence, the repentant, the flagless." Yet public life was not "completely cleansed of the remnants of the past," the "fascist-tainted judiciary" was back in office, a "main advisor to Nazi racial laws, whose implementation cost millions of lives," was advising the Federal Chancellor, a general amnesia was setting in, but the SS members had only removed their skulls and unexpectedly a "new 1933" might occur. The people are again credulous towards authority, and the conditions are "pre-enlightenment." The "Jewish-Bolshevik world conspiracy" is still being talked about, with just the first word conveniently erased. A new German resurgence from the starting position of the Federal Republic is therefore not out of the question and could cause a "new world catastrophe."
Indeed, the present is not seen under the signs of political militancy. Life in the Federal Republic is rather characterized by "eternal agitation, hysteria, and neurosis." The citizens are "full, comfortable, sluggish, bored, sensationalist, solely devoted to external things." Everything is focused on material accumulation, on making money, and even Christians are racing for profit in a "pseudo-Christian society," so that "commercial society has become total." "Instead of love, there is sex; instead of kindness, the concept of creditworthiness."
Therefore, the Federal Republic embodies thoughtlessness concerning the national goal of reunification, regardless of how tirelessly verbal assurances are repeated: "Precisely to avoid jeopardizing security and economic miracles, even for 'Germany's unity and freedom,' the people and leadership in West Germany have been resolutely determined for 10 years."
The strongest demand for the future is the desire to overcome the Cold War mentality. An author living in Italy sees the relationship among Italians as a model for the Federal Republic: "Here, no one is more Russian than the Kremlin and more American than the White House." Communists and capitalists are both "people," and: "A country in which all people regard each other as people is indivisible." It is therefore important to put the "purely negative" anti-communism behind us.
Indeed, none of the many involved authors prefer the DDR over the Federal Republic, not even the Protestant theologian who, with a term unacceptable to communists, speaks of a "division into Western materialism and Eastern idealism." In the progressing confessionalization of the Federal Republic, the danger is seen that the state could become an ideological state like the DDR, and Ulbricht is viewed as a counter-image to Adenauer. The hope for a future "democratization," which is supposed to create transparency, is limited to the Federal Republic. When "socialism" is occasionally mentioned—often with nostalgic remembrance of the CDU's "Ahlener Program"—it is clearly distinguished from the Eastern "violent communism." None of the many authors explicitly or even implicitly disagrees with the thesis posed by Hans Werner Richter, the editor of the latest of the three anthologies, in his preface: that the global conflict after 1945 was more strongly and inevitably rooted in the Russian system of rule than in the Western one.
Represented by this leftist thinking trend, which, as is immediately apparent, has preserved the "spirit of 1945" through the 1950s far better than society as a whole, with all its characteristics: pacifism, antifascism, and nationalism. This preservation enabled it to critique the prevailing realities and trends in the Federal Republic from a distance, demonstrating how far the state had strayed from the spirit of the early post-war period. However, the radical conclusion that the Federal Republic had become the opposite of what was aspired to in 1945—namely a warlike, fascist, and anti-national state—was never drawn, and even the attempts to reach this conclusion were unconvincing. For if a "new 1933" were imminent, then a "total commercialization" could not have occurred; and conversely, if the Federal Republic had become a purely economic society, then National Socialism had no chance of returning. Before 1933, the critique of commercialization had predominantly come from National Socialists and their sympathetic authors, and after 1945, American observers tended to dismiss this critique as a reactionary revolt against "modernity". Another contradiction lay in the fact that leftist literature, towards the end of the 1950s, played an important and almost predominant role in the sharply criticized Federal Republic. Thus, while the critique was substantiated in many details, it was as a whole a vivid proof that the Federal Republic was extremely insecure in its self-understanding and thus lacked the most essential quality of a state.
Right-wing authors, who were as far removed from radical opposition as their partners and opponents on the left, pointed out the internal and external weaknesses of the state. For example, three fundamental conditions in the Federal Republic were identified: the "mediatization of the people," the "dissolution of the state of emergency," and the "disempowerment of the executive," so that the state was left with only a "tin armor in dark perils with which Germany would have to reckon on its way.”
Here, the state of the Federal Republic was described as merely a function of society and assigned to the "passive phase" of the German people. It was even referred to as the "harmless, frivolous, dreamy, obsessed with its own powerlessness, solely concerned with its own comfort Federal Republic," which was a mere "playstate." This criticism, however, consistently served the core state idea and the fight against "the forces of comfortable self-limitation to the bourgeois refuge in a small Germany," and thus largely agreed with the leftist critique. Even Winfried Martini presented the view that, for the sake of freedom, in light of the strength of the Soviet opponent, the idea of "reunification" had to be abandoned, albeit with many reservations, and he further intensified the irredentist position with the fanfare of the thesis: "The Federal Republic does not represent Germany; it is Germany"; therefore, it must claim to extend its rule to the territory of the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ).
Nevertheless, there were not entirely lacking in the Federal Republic viewpoints that wanted to ascribe a greater and more independent role to the new state than merely restoring an old state, perhaps even in a mutilated form. The Rheinische Merkur, first published in Koblenz and then in Cologne, presented the Federal Republic with positive emphasis against the unitary-Prussian Bismarck state in countless articles and especially in a work by its most renowned editor, and occasionally even made it clear how strong the inclination towards a "reconciliation with Poland" was in part of the southern and western German Catholicism, a reconciliation, however, within the European framework and with a target orientation against the Soviet Union.
It would be reckless to deny that the "Rheinische Merkur" was also in a filiation relationship with the literature of the zero point, to which its first editor had made a notable contribution. This was even more true for Karl Jaspers, who, soon after his "Question of Guilt," in a consistent development, became a determined champion "of the Adenauer policy”. In 1958, in his speech "Truth, Freedom, and Peace," he declared that the Bismarckian state was "completely and utterly a thing of the past," and two years later, he presented the concept of liberating the GDR by renouncing the overly nationalistic and globally inappropriate reunification postulate. He suggested that a solution similar to Austria's for the GDR was conceivable, but not an expansion of the Federal Republic and the NATO area. The concept of European integration, insofar as it did not primarily see Europe as a means to German reunification, was also directed against the nationalistic instrumentalization of the Federal Republic. This, however, was precisely the official understanding.
Thus, it remained characteristic of the Federal Republic that what could have been a genuine state ideology, which in a normal state is not "right" or "left," but is common to all parties in its fundamental outlines, remained a tolerated view among many others. Therefore, the spectrum ranged from radical rejection of the state at one end and the other end, through the diverse and contradictory, sometimes even convergent, criticism of the left and right, to the narrow strip
of principled affirmation. This wide spectrum and its internal coherence proved that no single color was predominant and that the Federal Republic could rightly be called a "society without statehood," despite having a stable government, an excellent administration, and ultimately even a strong army. It resembled a body whose individual parts were pulling apart, as it lacked a central will and a unified self-understanding in that fundamental area which is exempt from discussion in other states. Yet, almost no one emigrated from this state, and certainly no one was forced to flee. In both respects, the GDR was the exact opposite of the Federal Republic.
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