By Sarah and Gerhard Pross: “There was the First
Reich with all the Habsburgian Emperors, then the Second Reich with the
Prussians and Bismarck; Hitler called his dictatorship the Third Reich
and now we have the Fourth Reich with Angela Merkel.” I had to think for
quite some time, but finally I nodded. The young Cypriot lady was
right.
Petroula studies history, archaeology, and German at
the University of Cyprus. Like her brother, she wants to continue her
studies in Germany. There are five bright kids in the family and due to
EU membership, Cypriots pay no university fees in Germany. It is enough
to be a good student. Petroula and her brother will make it. They have a
future.
“It doesn’t make sense to deny dominance, that is if it exists,” said the German president Joachim Gauck a few days ago. I had to think for quite some time, but finally I nodded. To be aware of power structures is the foundation of rational politics. “Do not expect justice where might is right,” President Anastasiades told a European audience in Limassol by quoting Plato. Why is it such a problem to accept ancient Greek wisdom?
There is a new Reich in the centre of Europe with its empress Angela Merkel who is surely a nice example for Protestant honesty. But how did it happen? Why is a protestant German housewife suddenly the leader of Europe?
Basically we should start after the unconditional surrender of the criminal Third Reich in 1945 but we skip the first 40 years. We begin with Jacques Delors, so far the most successful president of the European Commission. When he was appointed to the position in 1985, the European Union was largely irrelevant. It was the “period of eurosclerosis”. Delors overcame the stalemate and within a few years he transformed a weak Economic Union into the Single European Market (SEM) with its four basic freedoms: the free movement of people, capital, goods and services.
Delors was not only a convinced European but also a highly intelligent member of the French elite. Therefore, according to the old logic of European power games, we might summarise his subconscious intentions with the slightly modified sentence a British diplomat once coined for NATO: “to keep the English in, the Russians out, and the Germans down.”
For quite some time it worked. A good example is the First Gulf War. After the liberation of Kuwait, the Germans were forced to take out their cheque book and four billion deutschmark moved into the pockets of the US, the UK, and France. The US could play its leading role on the world stage without any foreign support, but England and France needed German money. The division of labour within the European Union was clear. The English and French delivered the heroes for our TV screens while the Germans paid for the show.
The game changed after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. One result was German reunification which actually weakened the German economy. And of course, the Germans had to pay an external diplomatic price for their reunification too. Although the Americans were happy that they could move the border of their NATO alliance next door to Moscow, the Russians demanded upper limits for the strength and armament of the German army plus 15 billion Deutschmark. The Germans agreed swiftly and a gentle rain of hard currency laid the groundwork for many Russian fortunes which later would be used to buy houses and football clubs in England.
As usual, the French approach was more sophisticated. Already during the 1970s the European monetary policy was mainly decided by the German central bank. Whenever the inflation scared Germans put up their interest rates, the French had to follow in order to avoid a huge outflow of capital. And because French productivity never matched the one of their protestant neighbour, the pathological German anti-inflation policy was pure poison for the French economy.
The brilliant idea to soften the deutschmark was the euro. A European Monetary Union (EMU) would give Paris the chance to break the financial dominance of Germany. In a ‘coup de nuit’ the French president Francois Mitterrand submitted the idea to the German Chancellor Helmut Kohl who agreed immediately. Kohl wanted to become the chancellor of German reunification and by keeping the national goal firmly in mind he never cared about the lowlands of financial feasibility.
Of course he knew that a vast majority of German voters was not prepared to give up the symbol of their productivity and pride: die Deutsche Mark! It was quite a gamble, but in their national delirium the Germans ignored the price they would pay to the French. They re-elected Helmut Kohl and the euro was born.
The soft solution worked perfectly for nearly ten years. From the very beginning the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt – to establish the European Central Bank in Germany was the only concession the Germans could wrest from the French – made clear that there would be no longer a European monetary policy dominated by German angst. Above all, the euro saved not only France but also all the other Mediterranean countries a lot of money. For quite some time the financial markets made nearly no difference between northern and southern European countries and everybody could borrow money at the much lower northern interest rate. The slogan was - and that has not only been true for Cyprus - “Buy now, pay later!” It worked well until the Americans ruined the credit bubble with excessive lending and the bankruptcy of a ‘German’ bank, the Lehman Brothers (the father of the three founders was a cattle dealer in Bavaria).
But the euro is only a tool and not the economic backbone of the Fourth Reich. The crucial development - we have to admit - was initiated by an English lady: Margaret Thatcher. She massively opposed German reunification and she stubbornly pursued the old English policy of balancing the powers on the Continent. It was her idea to integrate the ‘cordon sanitaire’ into the European Union as quickly as possible. Due to their terrible experience in WWII, the people living there didn’t like the Germans and a quick EU membership of all Eastern European nations would thwart ‘an ever-closer union’ as envisaged by leading German politicians such as Wolfgang Schaeuble.
Again, there was no escape for the poor Germans who were plagued by the fear that hordes of cheap Slavic workers might enter the German labour market. The only concession the Germans could get from the Iron Lady was that the EU commissioner responsible for enlargement should be a German. But Guenther Verheugen, the German with the Dutch name, quickly became a traitor. Instead of slowing down the process of ‘Bringing-in-the-East’, he pushed forward the EU enlargement. Verheugen even nodded when the British came up with the idea to integrate their former colonies Malta and Cyprus into the European Union.
The Reich’s authority now extends to the shores of Cyprus, a constellation we last had in 1228, when Frederick II, Emperor of the First Reich, landed in Limassol with his Arabic guard.
But of course, the important expansion happened in the centre of Europe. If we count together the heads of the eastern newcomers from Estonia down to Bulgaria we reach a figure of 111 million people. We add the 82 million people who live in Germany - three million Turks included - and we get a population of 193 million for the Fourth Reich. These are 51 million more inhabitants than those in Russia, the power which always has had the highest population number in Europe.
Please no misunderstanding, I know about the diversity of all these nations. My family comes from the East and I worked there for twenty years. It is still the most divided part of Europe and there will never be a national state; it will always be a ‘Reich’. But the citizens of the new empire are united by a simple and therefore powerful purpose: to prosper better than the rest of Europe.
The economic backbone of the Fourth Reich is cheap production in the Slavic east and solid engineering in the German West. Most parts of the cars and other machinery the Reich sells to the rest of the world are produced somewhere in the east with wage levels five times lower than those in France or in England. This matchless cheap supply chain gives the Fourth Reich its competitive advantage on the world markets.
And at the moment the Slavic-German Empire has the fitting leader. As a woman she has a basic advantage in Slavic countries with their tradition of the matriarchate. Slavic males are used to listening to wise women. In addition, Angela Merkel grew up in communist East Germany and therefore she has exactly the same very special life experience as all the other members of the eastern elites. Their ‘lingua franca’ is Russian because they all had to learn it at school.
Therefore it works smoothly with Merkel’s administration and there is a peaceful silence in the East. My former colleagues, still working there, annoy me constantly with the statement: “Gerhard, you missed our golden decade; finally we have the support from Berlin we were always waiting for.” With her motherly steadiness Angela Merkel has orchestrated an amazing reconciliation between the Germans and their Slavic neighbours. Looking back one day, it will be her crucial achievement which has made the Fourth Reich possible. As long as the Germans don’t play the nutty ‘Uebermenschen’ again, I cannot see what might remove them from the driving seat of the new European empire. Without the East, the rest of Europe will not have the power to do so.
Dr Gerhard Pross is an economist based in Cyprus. Sarah is his daughter
Source
Art by WB7
Petroula studies history, archaeology, and German at
the University of Cyprus. Like her brother, she wants to continue her
studies in Germany. There are five bright kids in the family and due to
EU membership, Cypriots pay no university fees in Germany. It is enough
to be a good student. Petroula and her brother will make it. They have a
future.“It doesn’t make sense to deny dominance, that is if it exists,” said the German president Joachim Gauck a few days ago. I had to think for quite some time, but finally I nodded. To be aware of power structures is the foundation of rational politics. “Do not expect justice where might is right,” President Anastasiades told a European audience in Limassol by quoting Plato. Why is it such a problem to accept ancient Greek wisdom?
There is a new Reich in the centre of Europe with its empress Angela Merkel who is surely a nice example for Protestant honesty. But how did it happen? Why is a protestant German housewife suddenly the leader of Europe?
Basically we should start after the unconditional surrender of the criminal Third Reich in 1945 but we skip the first 40 years. We begin with Jacques Delors, so far the most successful president of the European Commission. When he was appointed to the position in 1985, the European Union was largely irrelevant. It was the “period of eurosclerosis”. Delors overcame the stalemate and within a few years he transformed a weak Economic Union into the Single European Market (SEM) with its four basic freedoms: the free movement of people, capital, goods and services.
Delors was not only a convinced European but also a highly intelligent member of the French elite. Therefore, according to the old logic of European power games, we might summarise his subconscious intentions with the slightly modified sentence a British diplomat once coined for NATO: “to keep the English in, the Russians out, and the Germans down.”
For quite some time it worked. A good example is the First Gulf War. After the liberation of Kuwait, the Germans were forced to take out their cheque book and four billion deutschmark moved into the pockets of the US, the UK, and France. The US could play its leading role on the world stage without any foreign support, but England and France needed German money. The division of labour within the European Union was clear. The English and French delivered the heroes for our TV screens while the Germans paid for the show.
The game changed after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. One result was German reunification which actually weakened the German economy. And of course, the Germans had to pay an external diplomatic price for their reunification too. Although the Americans were happy that they could move the border of their NATO alliance next door to Moscow, the Russians demanded upper limits for the strength and armament of the German army plus 15 billion Deutschmark. The Germans agreed swiftly and a gentle rain of hard currency laid the groundwork for many Russian fortunes which later would be used to buy houses and football clubs in England.
As usual, the French approach was more sophisticated. Already during the 1970s the European monetary policy was mainly decided by the German central bank. Whenever the inflation scared Germans put up their interest rates, the French had to follow in order to avoid a huge outflow of capital. And because French productivity never matched the one of their protestant neighbour, the pathological German anti-inflation policy was pure poison for the French economy.
The brilliant idea to soften the deutschmark was the euro. A European Monetary Union (EMU) would give Paris the chance to break the financial dominance of Germany. In a ‘coup de nuit’ the French president Francois Mitterrand submitted the idea to the German Chancellor Helmut Kohl who agreed immediately. Kohl wanted to become the chancellor of German reunification and by keeping the national goal firmly in mind he never cared about the lowlands of financial feasibility.
Of course he knew that a vast majority of German voters was not prepared to give up the symbol of their productivity and pride: die Deutsche Mark! It was quite a gamble, but in their national delirium the Germans ignored the price they would pay to the French. They re-elected Helmut Kohl and the euro was born.
The soft solution worked perfectly for nearly ten years. From the very beginning the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt – to establish the European Central Bank in Germany was the only concession the Germans could wrest from the French – made clear that there would be no longer a European monetary policy dominated by German angst. Above all, the euro saved not only France but also all the other Mediterranean countries a lot of money. For quite some time the financial markets made nearly no difference between northern and southern European countries and everybody could borrow money at the much lower northern interest rate. The slogan was - and that has not only been true for Cyprus - “Buy now, pay later!” It worked well until the Americans ruined the credit bubble with excessive lending and the bankruptcy of a ‘German’ bank, the Lehman Brothers (the father of the three founders was a cattle dealer in Bavaria).
But the euro is only a tool and not the economic backbone of the Fourth Reich. The crucial development - we have to admit - was initiated by an English lady: Margaret Thatcher. She massively opposed German reunification and she stubbornly pursued the old English policy of balancing the powers on the Continent. It was her idea to integrate the ‘cordon sanitaire’ into the European Union as quickly as possible. Due to their terrible experience in WWII, the people living there didn’t like the Germans and a quick EU membership of all Eastern European nations would thwart ‘an ever-closer union’ as envisaged by leading German politicians such as Wolfgang Schaeuble.
Again, there was no escape for the poor Germans who were plagued by the fear that hordes of cheap Slavic workers might enter the German labour market. The only concession the Germans could get from the Iron Lady was that the EU commissioner responsible for enlargement should be a German. But Guenther Verheugen, the German with the Dutch name, quickly became a traitor. Instead of slowing down the process of ‘Bringing-in-the-East’, he pushed forward the EU enlargement. Verheugen even nodded when the British came up with the idea to integrate their former colonies Malta and Cyprus into the European Union.
The Reich’s authority now extends to the shores of Cyprus, a constellation we last had in 1228, when Frederick II, Emperor of the First Reich, landed in Limassol with his Arabic guard.
But of course, the important expansion happened in the centre of Europe. If we count together the heads of the eastern newcomers from Estonia down to Bulgaria we reach a figure of 111 million people. We add the 82 million people who live in Germany - three million Turks included - and we get a population of 193 million for the Fourth Reich. These are 51 million more inhabitants than those in Russia, the power which always has had the highest population number in Europe.
Please no misunderstanding, I know about the diversity of all these nations. My family comes from the East and I worked there for twenty years. It is still the most divided part of Europe and there will never be a national state; it will always be a ‘Reich’. But the citizens of the new empire are united by a simple and therefore powerful purpose: to prosper better than the rest of Europe.
The economic backbone of the Fourth Reich is cheap production in the Slavic east and solid engineering in the German West. Most parts of the cars and other machinery the Reich sells to the rest of the world are produced somewhere in the east with wage levels five times lower than those in France or in England. This matchless cheap supply chain gives the Fourth Reich its competitive advantage on the world markets.
And at the moment the Slavic-German Empire has the fitting leader. As a woman she has a basic advantage in Slavic countries with their tradition of the matriarchate. Slavic males are used to listening to wise women. In addition, Angela Merkel grew up in communist East Germany and therefore she has exactly the same very special life experience as all the other members of the eastern elites. Their ‘lingua franca’ is Russian because they all had to learn it at school.
Therefore it works smoothly with Merkel’s administration and there is a peaceful silence in the East. My former colleagues, still working there, annoy me constantly with the statement: “Gerhard, you missed our golden decade; finally we have the support from Berlin we were always waiting for.” With her motherly steadiness Angela Merkel has orchestrated an amazing reconciliation between the Germans and their Slavic neighbours. Looking back one day, it will be her crucial achievement which has made the Fourth Reich possible. As long as the Germans don’t play the nutty ‘Uebermenschen’ again, I cannot see what might remove them from the driving seat of the new European empire. Without the East, the rest of Europe will not have the power to do so.
Dr Gerhard Pross is an economist based in Cyprus. Sarah is his daughter
Source
Art by WB7
No comments:
Post a Comment