The dangers of German history: Lessons from a decade of post‐cold war German foreign and security policy¹

My thanks go to Dr Lorenzo‐Dus for invaluable help with German language sources.

Abstract

Historically, Germany's progress has been intimately entwined with past experience. It has been a tale of reinvention: Imperial Germany, Weimar Germany, National Socialist Germany, and Divided Germany. On each transition, the historical shock was sufficiently traumatic to force/enable subsequent leaders to steer Germany upon a new path. This article examines whether this positive linkage has continued in the context of post‐Cold War German foreign and security policy. In doing so it steps back from the popular ‘normalisation’ debate about whether or not Germany should, or has, maintained its civilian power status. Rather; it argues that attempts to maintain FRG foreign policy traditions produced increasingly difficult role conflicts and that the efforts of successive German governments to address these were compromised by the enduring power of historical memory, regardless of whether or not normalisation is desired. And as a consequence Germany became awkwardly placed between the predictable attritional multilateralism of the FRG and a ‘normal’ power and between its rhetorical commitment to exercising a leadership role and its practical ability to deliver such, especially in terms of military interventionism.

Notes

My thanks go to Dr Lorenzo‐Dus for invaluable help with German language sources.