Freedom, Equality, Solidarity

Thoughts on Europe's Future - from Germany, France and Poland

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• Publisher: Bertelsmann Stiftung
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9783867936170
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: European Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Although the principles of democracy are in abstract stable concepts, every generation must consider anew how best to apply them in society. What do the principles of freedom, equality and solidarity mean to today's Germans, French and Poles?Twelve authors and interview partners from Germany, France and Poland, including Marianne Birthler, André Glucksmann and Adam Krzemi?ski, provide moving responses to important questions about a common European future.

FREEDOM

Western Freedom – Eastern Freedom? Toward a Common Culture of Memory

MARIANNE BIRTHLER

“The Englishman loves liberty as his lawful wife, and if he does not treat her with remarkable tenderness, he is still ready in case of need to defend her like a man, and woe to the red-coated rascal who forces his way to her bedroom – let him do so as a gallant or as a catchpoll. The Frenchman loves liberty as his bride. He burns for her, he is aflame, he casts himself at her feet with the most extravagant protestations, he will fight for her to the death, he commits for her sake a thousand follies. The German loves liberty as though she were his old grandmother.”

What Heinrich Heine satirized in the 19th century appears true to this day: While many Germans certainly prize their freedom, it hardly tops their hierarchy of values. Indeed, quite a few Germans view freedom with suspicion, equating it with selfishness and free-market radicalism. The risks and burdens of an open society are mounted as arguments against the principle of liberty. Self-will, responsibility and a liberal attitude toward life have difficulty competing with the enticements of a protective and custodial social order.

For three generations, most Germans have lived in a free country whose democratic institutions, structures and practices are regarded as stable and exemplary. This stability is underpinned by the value that the great majority of the citizens of the former West Germany place on liberty and democracy – and by the fact that their experience of freedom in the past six decades was consistently linked to rising prosperity, economic power and internal as well as external security.

West Europe’s core liberal values

Just a few years after the end of the horrors that Germany’s National Socialists unleashed upon Europe and the world, the free nations reached out to reconcile with Germany – an essential precondition to the integration of the Federal Republic into the rising Western European and trans-Atlantic community of values. This process extended beyond the political sphere and the decisively Western orientation of its early postwar governments. It also transformed West German society through countless encounters, travels and friendships. These were further fostered by influential institutions, such as the Franco-German Youth Office, German-American student exchanges and the Action Reconciliation Service for Peace. This lively exchange with Western countries shaped much of the generation that now bears responsibility in politics, the media and the universities.

It is a paradox of social change that even those members of the ’68 generation who once revered Lenin and Mao, supported communist regimes and were blind to human rights violations behind the Iron Curtain later (sometimes much later) morphed into reliably liberal political and social actors espousing the core liberal values of Western Europe. Yet, even today, it is hard to say how stable this embrace of a liberal and democratic system would have been under challenging political or economic conditions. To date, it has never been exposed to a true stress test.

Yearning for freedom

History unfurled very differently in the former East Germany. Under Soviet occupation, no time was lost in establishing a dictatorship following the Allied victory and the division of Germany into four occupation zones. The German Democratic Republic (GDR), founded in October 1949, subsequently belonged to the Soviet-dominated sphere for four decades, until just before its demise.

In many respects, the people of the GDR shared the fate of other Central and East European societies, whose hopes for finally living in freedom after the war and the Nazi horrors were bitterly dashed. Under Stalin’s rule, communist dictatorships were established that brought economic, social and cultural harm as well as destruction to countries already devastated by war. Freedom and human rights counted for nothing; from then on, surveillance, discipline and repression characterized everyday life.

But the 40-year history of communist rule in Europe continually met with resistance and revolts, which were brutally repressed time and again. In every East Bloc country, people yearned for freedom. Countless numbers of them were imprisoned and convicted or had to go into exile. So far, the history of this diverse and courageous resistance has scarcely entered into the historical memory of Europe as a whole.

The significance of resistance in France’s political and cultural self-understanding is indisputable. The Polish Home Army, the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, the Poznań Uprising of 1956 and the Solidarity movement are each important elements of Polish identity today. The case is similar in Germany for the resistance against Hitler and – more recently – for the June 1953 revolt against the Communist Party and the 1989 revolution. Catastrophes are burned into the collective memory, but so too are the dignity and courage of those who opposed tyranny and totalitarian ideologies, often risking their lives. Remembrance of them is not only an expression of respect and gratitude, but also an affirmation of values. Anyone who pays tribute to Sophie and Hans Scholl also honors their principles and their love of freedom.

Manifestations of civil courage

When people in Central and East Europe come together to proudly commemorate their Peaceful, Singing or Velvet revolutions of 1989, these events do not merely hark back to the past. They are also manifestations of civil courage, human dignity and love of freedom that are crucial for the future. That is what makes these remembrances valuable for society, today and tomorrow. Past experiences become resources for the future.

However, the free Europe of the 21st century has not exactly seized this opportunity. There are no shared symbols, such as memorial sites or days of remembrance, commemorating the 20th-century struggle for freedom. Nor have there been political decisions to support systematic research into this history. It is as though we have no need to harness the power of memory to confront possible dangers in the future – be they new authoritarian tendencies or ideological temptations. In the wake of dictatorships or civil wars, it remains unusual for societies – and, even more so, their elites – to devote time and effort to reflecting critically and especially self-critically on the past.

Why such restraint? More than a few individuals are concerned with saving their own skin, continuing their career under new conditions or just repressing inconvenient questions that could detract from their self-image. Of course, they use other reasons to justify themselves publicly: Looking backward is a drain on energy needed for reconstruction; no one is really interested in the past anymore; reminders of human rights violations impede initiatives for reconciliation and social peace; confronting the perpetrators and political decision-makers only spawns new injustices. In some East Bloc countries – especially those that were part of the former Soviet Union – there is also a strong tendency to blame the Russians alone; phenomena such as collaboration and betrayal among the native populace become virtually invisible.

It is quite possible that continuities in personnel reinforce this trend. Has anyone ever asked about the political past of all the staff members assigned to the European Parliament and the European Commission after the accession of the Central and East European countries, or their links to the secret police? Nor is there reason to believe that background checks have been done for German EU staffers.

Fostering a culture of remembrance

In the face of such widespread collective denial, those who refuse to forget – whether as individuals or groups – have a hard time. Their efforts rarely reach the public. They may be defamed, persecuted politically and legally, and sometimes even physically attacked.

Yet dangers lurk when politicians too eagerly embrace this subject. They may use their political opponents’ past (or even just allegations about it) as a cudgel, especially when no documentary evidence is available to contest the charges. When wrestling with the past becomes a political weapon without the rule of law affording protection against abuse, this can be just as harmful as silence and inaction.

A society that closes its eyes to its own past damages its own self-awareness and thus its culture. No one contests this with regard to the appealing elements of their own history. But the culture of remembrance envisioned here calls for an unromanticized view of the past. It is not limited to heroic stories, triumph and self-sacrifice. Denial of a society’s own responsibility, failures and betrayal of freedom spawns nostalgia or falsifies history altogether. As Wolf Biermann said: “A half-truth is a whole lie.”

Freedom and lies are mutually exclusive. This is why Václav Havel wrote in his famous treatise against oppression, The Power of the Powerless, of the necessity of “living in truth.” A free and democratic Europe requires a shared culture of remembrance that pays tribute to the struggle for freedom and honors those who risked life and limb for it; that calls injustice and its perpetrators by their true names; and that mourns the many millions of people who fell victim to European dictatorships.

Coming to terms with European communism

Like any other culture, a culture of remembrance needs people who nurture it, institutions that promote it, media that communicate it, and politicians who support it. However, two decades after the collapse of communism in Europe, this support still has a long way to go. The European Council did pass resolutions in 1986 and 2006 condemning communist crimes in Europe and calling for a process of coming to terms with them. But the European Parliament has taken its time. Only on April 2, 2009, did it pass a resolution acknowledging its responsibility to work through the legacy of European communism. Marking the 70th anniv...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Titel
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• FREEDOM
• EQUALITY
• SOLIDARITY
• Epilogue: Of “True Freedom” and Other Threats to Democracy
• Authors and Photographers
• Glossary
• Register of Persons
• Impressum