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May 10, 2005

Guilt trip

"It is fair to wonder," writes David Frum, "whether at this point in history, an unending confrontation with guilt and shame is healthy for democratic Germany or for Germany's democratic allies." I'm not sure I follow him. His premise seems to be that German guilt, as manifested in histrionic knee-jerk reactions to hardly-even-vaguely fascist diction and the tiniest war-related solecism, is having unpleasant consequences:

If you [who? –ed.] tell a large and mighty nation that it can never be proud of itself, the natural egotism of human beings will seek some other outlet, less wholesome than normal patriotism. Many in Germany support the unification of Europe much less as a rational response to real needs, and much more because they yearn to feel for "Europe" the loyalty and pride they cannot allow themselves to feel for their own country and their own culture.

(Ahem. Source?) It's having unpleasant consequences for David Frum, in other words, because David Frum does not like the European Union. This seems to be why he's trying to put the über back in Deutschland über alles. He feels strongly enough about it to have written this:

...this united Europe is emerging as a much greater threat to the Atlantic Alliance and to European democracy than the Federal Republic of Germany would ever be.

Hey, what's this "would ever be" business? It was already. Twice! It's crazy to suggest that 21st century Germany represents a threat to the world, with or without the EU, but Frum never even attempts to prove that German war guilt is unnatural—that it's something to be medicated, in other words, rather than dutifully suffered through. Of course the Germans would be better off without the weight of six million departed souls on their backs, but there are two ways to look at that: 1. It's been 60 years for crying out loud—buck up, Germany! Or, 2. Well, that's what happens when you kill six million innocent people.

Call me a Camp 2 guy. I won't try to psychoanalyze an entire nation, but I think this guilt is entirely understandable and probably healthy, at least while so many of those who fought against Germany's modern-day allies are still alive. On Sunday, Andrew Davidson posted a tribute to his grandfather, who was shot down over occupied France in 1944. My grandfather was a pilot too. Until recently, his written records of his experiences seemed to me almost absurdly straightforward: "Took off from Point A. Encountered 19 life-and-death situations along the way. Landed at Point B. Four hours sleep. Sausage at bkfst terrible." He speaks the same way: neither curt nor descriptive, neither self-aggrandizing nor self-effacing. Just the facts.

It finally dawned on me one day that he'd expect the same from me if the need ever arose. I find it disturbingly difficult to believe that he'd get it, but I suppose you never really know what you're capable of until an Adolf Hitler threatens your civilization. The point is that the greatest generation remains fundamental to our belief in western civilization, because it represents the lengths to which we're prepared to go to defend it. People of my generation—Canadians, Americans, Brits, Aussies, and so on—draw incalculable strength from our grandfathers' wartime exploits. Germans of my generation draw none, and nor should they. That's bound to mess with your head a little.

Posted by Chris Selley at May 10, 2005 11:27 PM