Of late, The Active Voice has been, in a word, inactive. No
excuses, but now we’re back. I thought I was through with reporting on my fall
visit to Germany (20 posts seeming like plenty).
But now that I’ve finally finished Peter Watson’s 964-page opus, The German Genius (HarperCollins, New
York: 2010), I feel the need to pen just one more. The book, a gift from family
members upon learning of my trip, is a fascinating history of German ideas over
the past 250 years. Watson explains that Germany’s late arrival at nationhood
in 1871 coincided with its late renaissance and late introduction to the
industrial revolution, all of which helped produce the powerhouse nation that
set out to dominate Europe in the 20th Century.
There is way too much in this book for a blogger to
adequately cover, so I won’t even try. But I do want to make three points
before leaving the subject: 1) that the
term “German genius” is no misnomer, as evidenced by the list of German
geniuses I’ll share with you momentarily; 2) non-Germans do not realize the
extent to which today’s Germany was changed by the social revolution of 1968;
and 3) Germans today take responsibility--and show many signs of deepest
regret--for their nation’s past sins.
#1: The “German geniuses” of the past 250 years include ‘the
standard “backbone” of classical music … Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart,
Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms … as well as scientists/inventors Friedrich
Bayer (pharmaceuticals), Carl Zeiss (microscope), Alfred Krupp (weaponry), and
Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler (automobile), to name but a few. Watson notes
that, "with the exception of market economics and natural selection, the
contemporary world of ideas is one that, broadly speaking, was created by, in
roughly chronological order, Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Karl
Marx, Rudolf Clausius (thermodynamics), Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Planck
(quantum theory), Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Max Weber (Protestant work
ethic), and two world wars. The ideas of another German, Gregor Mendel
("father of modern genetics"), are gaining ground fast as the
start of the 21st century …”
#2: Non-Germans do
not realize the extent to which today’s Germany has changed. “Despite the
successful establishment of democratic institutions in Germany after (WWII),
authoritarian thought patters tended to persist and it was not until the 1960s
that the modernization deficit was overcome. A crucial factor … was the
generational rebellion of 1968, when the younger (generation) … turned on its
parents for the acquiescence in horror they had shown in the Third Reich and
for their inability to face their guilt; and only then, in 1968, did Germans
start to internalize democratic values, develop a counter elite and demand
self-government and democratic counter-power…. Henceforth Germany had a
critical, skeptical public, an entity
that had been common enough in, say, Great Britain, France, or the U.S. for
generations, but that had now finally arrived in Germany…. The fourth postwar
generation has adjusted to the terrible German past and has the courage to face
up to the fact that “almost everyone” in the Third Reich knew what was going
on…. (But) many outside Germany still do not grasp (with the Germans themselves
failing to see why outsiders do not appreciate this profound truth), the social
revolution of 1968, particularly in West Germany, was a much bigger set of events there than anywhere else…
3) Germans today take responsibility--and show many signs of
deepest regret--for their nation’s past sins. In my other posts from Germany,
I’ve pointed out numerous ways this is evident throughout the nation. As I was
finishing Watson’s book, I came across the following paragraph--and realized
I’d actually seen these “stumbling stones” during my visit to Cologne: “In some
ways the most effective--and most beautiful--architectural project (or is it
sculpture?), which also presents the face of a Germany we haven’t seen before,
are the Stolpersteine, the ‘stumbling stones’ of Gunter Demnig. These stones,
set into the pavement, in Cologne to begin with, are slightly raised
cobblestones located outside houses where murdered Jews once lived. A brass
plate is nailed to each stone containing basic details: “Here lived Moritz
Rosenthal. B. 1883. Deported 1941. Lodz. Died 28.2.1942.” The first stones
Demnig installed were illegal, but the idea caught on and in 1999 he was
officially approved More than a thousand stones are now in place in Cologne and
in several other cities.”