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The 30th anniversary of German unification: one to celebrate. 30 years after this gift from history. No matter how the unit and its progress are evaluated in detail, it is a day in which what has been created and achieved must be greatly appreciated. That as a necessary prelude to retrospective consideration. It’s sad.
No federal president has ever had as many speechwriters as the incumbent. And yet his speech had failed; because he was only great in the disappointment he left behind.
First of all, there are these mistakes: in fact, we hear about peace agreements with Warsaw and Moscow. Aside from the fact that – yes – they should have been contracts: no! They would have resulted in repair payments that should and had to be avoided in all circumstances. Rather, they were non-violence agreements and were controversial enough.
Quite a few legal experts said that half of Germany could not have done that. Just read once how, for example, the so-called Bahr document was disputed in 1970, named for Willy Brandt’s adviser, Egon Bahr. There should be one or the other in the presidential office who knows.
So: No reference to the 2 + 4 negotiations, at the end of which the recognition of the Oder-Neisse border was only possible under international law. But not as a singular act, to some extent demonstrative, but as a consequence of the process (almost ingenious, because historically and legally conscious) to ensure unity.
Steinmeier doesn’t say a word about Helmut Kohl
So: The federal president rightly thanks the United States for making unity possible. But suddenly he made a distinction according to the type of identity politics so criticized, thanking “this” America, that of these years, as German head of state. It is as if the Germans look for what is comfortable for us, yes, as if they allow us. Here too: no.
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So: we Germans celebrate 30 years of unity, and the Social Democratic federal president does not say a word, not a single word about Helmut Kohl, the chancellor of unity. Because it was what? Christian Democrat? You don’t have to like Kohl, God forbid, to still acknowledge his contribution (by the way, related to it: European unification) and his undeniable historical status. And this time, how to thank. Mikhail Gorbachev was appointed.
So: 30 years later, ordering a memorial for GDR civil rights activists is cheap. And looking back. It would have been more important on this day to make other proposals on how this country will truly become the best Germany that has ever existed, as the President stated today.
No Richard von Weizsäcker, no Johannes Rau would have delivered a speech like that of the Federal President, who in this historic year had the honor of speaking for us Germans.
