German Politics and Society

The German Social Democratic Party (SPD) celebrated its 140 years

of existence on 23 May 2003 with the appropriate fanfare in Berlin.

Not too many other political parties in the world can match this survival

record, especially given the hostility of Chancellor Bismarck,

who in 1878 outlawed the fledgling party as an organization for

twelve years, and of Adolf Hitler, who in 1933 drove the party into

exile for twelve years. During the post-World War II era, the SPD

reestablished itself as a major party and shared in governing the

country from 1966 to 1982 and again from 1998 to the present. It

has left an imprint on the country’s domestic and foreign policies.

But in the twenty-first century’s initial years, the SPD, despite being

in power, is facing serious problems of maintaining membership and

electoral support.

On 4 July 2002, the German Bundestag had to decide on the future

of one of the capital city’s principal historical sites: the square known

as the Schlossplatz, where the Hohenzollern Palace once stood but

that since 1976 had been the site of the German Democratic Republic’s

flagship Palace of the Republic. It was not the first time that

German politicians had been called upon to decide issues relating to

art and architecture. On previous occasions votes had been taken on

the wrapping of the Reichstag by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Sir

Norman Foster’s dome, Hans Haacke’s artistic installation “Der

Bevölkerung” inside the Reichstag, and Peter Eisenman’s design for

Berlin’s Holocaust memorial.1 Their decision to rebuild the historical

palace, however, differed in that the politicians did not vote on

an architectural design, “in eigener Sache.”2 That is, it was not a

building or monument belonging to the governmental or political

sphere of the capital city but rather a site likely to house cultural

institutions. Parliamentarians, thus, were called upon to settle a

twelve-year-old planning and architectural controversy after all other

means, including architectural competitions, had failed.

Without help from the west, the small East German opposition,

such as it was, never would have achieved as much as it did. The

money, moral support, media attention, and protection provided by

western supporters may have made as much of a difference to the

opposition as West German financial support made to the East German

state. Yet this help was often resented and rarely acknowledged

by eastern activists. Between 1988 and 1990, I worked with

Arche, an environmental network created in 1988 by East German

dissidents. During that time, the assistance provided by West Germans,

émigré East Germans, and foreigners met with a level of distrust

that cannot entirely be blamed on secret police intrigue.

Outsiders who tried to help faced a barrage of allegations and criticism

of their work and motives. Dissidents who elected to remain in

East Germany distrusted those who emigrated, and vice versa,

reflecting an unfortunate tendency, even among dissidents, to internalize

elements of East German propaganda. Yet neither the help

and support the East German opposition received from outside nor

the mentalities that stood in its way have been much discussed. This

essay offers a description and analysis of the relationship between

the opposition and its outside supporters, based largely on one person’s

first-hand experience.

Piero Ignazi, Extreme Right Parties in Western Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)

Cas Mudde, The Ideology of the Extreme Right (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003)

Martin Schain, Aristide Zolberg, and Patrick Hossay, eds., Shadows over Europe: The Development and Impact of the Extreme Right in Western Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002)

Henning Tewes, Germany, Civilian Power and the New Europe. Enlarging NATO and the European Union (New York: Palgrave, 2002)

Review by James Sperling

Andreas Huyssen, Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003)

Review by Eric Langenbacher

Maria Höhn, GIs and Fräuleins: The German-American Encounter in 1950s West Germany (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002)

Review by Atina Grossmann

James McAllister, No Exit: America and the German Problem, 1943-1954, Cornell Studies in Security Affairs (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2002)

Review by Robert Gerald Livingston

Hubert Zimmermann, Money and Security: Troops, Monetary Policy, and West Germany’s Relations to the United States and the United Kingdom, 1950-1971 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002)

Review by Thomas Banchoff