Iraq - Germany's Shame

Medienkritik reports on a must read article in Germany's SPIEGEL ONLINE.

Terminator? Demokrator!

By Claus Christian Malzahn

Iraq, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon: The virus of democracy is running rampant in the Middle East. German foreign policy must finally react to this joyous turnaround and look the fact in the eye that, in fact, freedom and democracy sometimes are brought with fire and sword.

[Which is the opposite of what you usually hear, namely that democracy can't be brought about by the barrel of a gun]

Berlin – George W. Bush – the man knows what he is talking about – once compared Germany’s abstinence from the Iraq war with the behavior of a dry alcoholic: For them a glass of beer is already one glass too many. War as a political means became taboo for the German Federal Republic after the Wehrmacht and SS left Europe in rubble and ash, murdered nearly all European Jews and struck a swath of death through the Soviet Union. At the moment, Germany is virtually sinking in a flood of memories of the Second World War; Almost every day 60 years ago is relived once again through the media. No other nation in Europe is so obsessed with history as the Germans. The fascination with “downfall” is nearly boundless.

But this flood of pictures and avalanche of history bury some important realizations that still possess validity even today. The Nazi rule was also not ended by sit-ins in front of the Führer headquarters. Hitler’s total war machine was fought to defeat at the greatest military and civilian sacrifice on the part of the Russians, Americans and British. We Germans were brought democracy carried into our land by bombs and grenades. It would not have worked otherwise, because the Germans did not want it otherwise. Many believed in their Führer to the very end, and the first steps of re-education back then were not motivated by social workers, but instead ordered by the US Army.

A must read article.
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