Welded together from unequal parts, modern Germany has overcome historic challenges and matured into Europe's economic powerhouse. Scenes from a marriage that's a little short on romance—and long on success
The glass dome of the Reichstag Michele Tantussi/Bloomberg
There won't be many birthday parties for Berlin this year. The city's main thoroughfare, Unter den Linden, is still jammed with tourists, and the Prussian-era museums, destroyed by Allied bombs during World War II, have been restored to their former glory. The cafés and bars of Mitte, in what used to be East Berlin, overflow with polyglot congregations of artists and hipsters. But Berliners are staying stoic about Oct. 3, 2010—the 20th anniversary of German unification, an event that ended four decades of German division and closed the books on the Cold War. Last November the commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall brought 35 heads of state to the German capital. Only a handful are expected this time. Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel plans to be out of town. "We're all still exhausted from last November," says Constanze Stelzenmüller, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin. "I don't find myself getting excited about Oct. 3 the way I did last year."
Most Germans identify Nov. 9, 1989—the night the Wall came down—as the date on which the nation reclaimed its destiny. The images of East Berliners running through the Wall and into the arms of strangers on the other side, of ordinary people hammering concrete and drinking champagne at the Brandenburg Gate, remain indelible. Few of the East Germans who streamed into West Berlin on that November night in 1989 would have predicted that the two Germanys could become a single, free, and democratic state within a year—or that the Iron Curtain would crumble. That the unimaginable did occur in the heart of Europe two decades ago made the world a better, safer place. And so even in the absence of conspicuous revelry, the events that culminated in the peaceful unification of Germany are still worth celebrating. When you ask Germans today to describe, 20 years later, what unification meant to them, one word invariably recurs: To them, it was a "miracle." Perhaps a bigger miracle is that the next two decades turned out as well as they did.
Today, Germany is the most important country in Europe. Its export-driven economy is the envy of the developed world. Second-quarter gross domestic product rose 9 percent, the fastest pace in two decades. German business confidence hit its highest level in more than three years in September, suggesting that German companies can withstand weaker demand for exports should the global economy slow.
The rest of Europe has become dependent on Germany's size, industry, and frugality, and many of the country's business leaders—and largest exporters—are reconciled to the need to support weaker nations. "A single European market is a blessing for all," says Wolfgang Mayrhuber, chairman and chief executive officer of Deutsche Lufthansa.
Executives may bask in Germany's status as Europe's economic engine, but ordinary Germans are still ambivalent. The Merkel government's reluctant $11 billion contribution to the EU fund that stabilized the Greek debt crisis last spring has fueled widespread euro-skepticism. According to research firm Forsa, more than half of Germans say the Greek bailout was a bad idea, and close to two-thirds believe the euro is a weak currency.
The public's reluctance to use German strength on behalf of the rest of the Continent reflects the fact that the debate over the costs and sacrifices of unification is still fresh. West Germans have spent more than $1 trillion to rebuild the crumbling factories and cities of the East, with inconsistent results. Without tax breaks, infrastructure investment, and fast-track approvals, "most companies in the former East Germany would have stood no chance of survival," says Jürgen Hambrecht, chairman of BASF's management board. Hambrecht adds that BASF wouldn't have invested €1.3 billion in its Schwarzeide industrial site in East Germany without these incentives.
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