Below is simply a fragment of Maximilian Krah's interview, MP AfD for the "Hungary Today" journal. He speaks of the differences between Western and east Germany, the attitude towards Russia and the prospects of fresh German unity:
We besides see that basic historical experiences with the Russians are returning. You can see this now in Poland, where being not only skeptical, but even hostile to Russians seems to be part of the national character. This is besides evident in the differences between east and Western Germany. While East Germany was occupied by Russians with russian troops in the country until 1992, east Germany is rather pro-Russian. West Germany has adopted any anti-Russian prejudices which, in my opinion, have been launched in Nazi times to gain support for the war with Russia and continued during the Cold War. After decades of Western propaganda depicting Russia as an empire of evil, it is now easy to exploit the old stereotypes in the current campaign.
No 1 speaks of the war in Ukraine as a multidimensional conflict about which many arguments can be put forward. Instead, we now see war in Ukraine as a conflict between good and evil and that whoever does not support war is simply a supporter of evil. If people realize that this war is not a question of morality, but a substance of interest and that a long war harms us more than a short war, political debate will take a different kind and direction.
This debate is indeed rather interesting due to the fact that it shows the division between the 2 parts of Germany. In addition to the reasons I have already given you, I would like to draw your attention to an issue that is inactive highly crucial in Germany: the past of national socialism and its terrible crimes. In the case of East Germany Stalin said, “Hitlers come and go, but the German people will remain.” Later the Russians received mediocre reparations in the past of the planet economy and established a communist government that was rejected by the vast majority of east Germans.
Maximilian Krah
However, communists in East Germany have never promoted the view that the German people as a full or that German culture is someway liable for the crimes of national socialism. National socialism was seen as a case in German history, which did not affect the value of German art, music and culture.
In West Germany, the situation was somewhat different. There was a cold war, and the message of the victorious Western powers was: “You fought against the Russians under Hitler, you can fight against the Russians now”. It was a sign that not everything the Germans did was wrong. This created a relation with Nazi times and made it hard for Germans to clear themselves of their sins, so students who participated in the 1968 rebellions were not completely wrong, claiming that Germany of the 1950s and 1960s never truly broke up with any national socialist traditions. Generation 1968 launched the explanation that the full German nation – its culture, art, music – is infected with national socialism. For them, the full German past leading to 1933 is an overture, and 12 years of national socialism is the crowning of German history. Everything after 1945 becomes a penance.
West German left-wing intellectuals are obsessed with national socialism. Consequently, schools, universities, and theatres teach self-loathing alternatively of patriotism. Russia seems to be a kind of antithesis from this point of view. It is simply a nation that rebuilt after the times of communism and wants to legitimize again, utilizing its past and tradition, combining Orthodox religion with Stalin's triumph to find the foundation for its patriotism and national pride. For this reason Russia embodies everything the leftist hate, while East Germany, who are happy to return to past and happy to return to united Germany and who endure from West German denial, tends to take the Russian road and accept at least part of it.
On the another hand, we see that the economical crisis we are heading towards will bring with it many fresh concerns and problems. This is an chance to find a common ground again. People in the east and west face the same problems in heating housing, filling refrigerators and saving jobs during the winter. These very applicable challenges can besides bring a fresh wave of unity to the country. But this crisis makes it more and more apparent that West Germany accepted the cultural phrase after planet War II, which distanced it from what is commonly understood as Germanism, or German tradition and German culture.
Behind: Hungary Today
Photo: Dresden in east Germany (photo: public domain)
