La questione tedesca in Europa, forza propulsiva e pulsioni egemoniche

- At the end of the Second World War, Germany was a defeated and devastated Country, politically divided into two distinct regions under control of the victorious powers. In Germany’s conscience, 1945 became a sort of Zero Year for a new political and economic renaissance, which, in the last decade of the 20th Century. would lead to its reunification, under the aegis of Chancellor Helmut Kohl. It was the time of the disruption of Soviet Union,and the end of the Cold War. Within a decade, Germany would become one of the strongest States in Europe. The Author’s central viewpoint is that it is difficult to understand the issue of Germany’s rebirth without taking into consideration its national identity, which has its roots into the experience of the Holy Roman Empire – whose German definition adds “Deutscher Nation”, i.e. “of the German Nation”. It paved the way to the concept of European Zentralmacht (central power) and Lebensraum (the vital space). This chapter lingers on the historical and ideological course of these assumptions, a long and difficult journey through centuries of wars and different political choices, that forged the ideological base of Germany as a leading continental power. According to the author, this was the focal turning point that, after the Second World War, brought West Germany to become a NATO’s member in 1952, and, soon later, a member of the CEE, and, in 1989-90, with the collapse of the USSR, to the reunification of territory and population. It was the last page of a long and insidious path that German leaders were able to tackle with remarkable skill. In the new millennium, Germany found itself as political, economic, commercial and industrial pivot between Eastern and Western Europe. A position that gave Germany the role of pillar of the European architecture, to the point that, with the introduction of Euro as the European common currency, the Central Bank would be based at Frankfurt. The article’s conclusion is that – with the words of Ulrich Roos – Germany’s economic, demographic, commercial and industrial strength, its geographic location and self-confident attitude when the community’s assets were concerned, have progressively shifted the needle of the balance from the idea of European Germany to the fact of a German Europe. However, it would be highly desirable that Berlin might balance its supremacy towards a constructive direction, which wouldn’t follow risky abstractions but pragmatic objectives of common interest.