Today's Germany is not the old regime

Whiskey and Rye
    By John Schochet

On Sat., Oct. 9, an article passed through the sidebar on CNN.com, most likely ignored by Yalies surf ing the web for their daily dose of international news. But this story is important to the future of world politics and to the collective mindset of the American people.

Since June, NATO has kept a force of 42,000 soldiers in Kosovo. Their mission is to protect the citizens of the Serb province and to build peace and stability in the Balkans, despite Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic's best efforts to the contrary. Until Saturday, their commander was Lieutenant General Sir Michael Jackson, a tough-talking Brit who only appears in news photographs wearing rumpled fatigues.

SHAWN CHENG/YH

In a low-key military ceremony, General Jackson handed over control of the 42,000 troops to Klaus Reinhardt, a 58-year-old four-star general in the German Army.

For the first time since 1945, a German general commands a force outside of Germany. Within this force, General Reinhardt heads thousands of American, British, French, and Russian soldiers. This is one of the most important and positive events in Europe since the end of the Cold War.

But this is Germany, right? This is a country that started two World Wars, killed 12 million civilians in history's worst genocide campaign, tried to conquer all of Europe, and supplies the bad guys for our action movies. Well, it's time to stop thinking "Hitler" when we think "Germany." Nazi Germany was the most evil regime in modern history. Though Stalin and Mao are each responsible for killing far more people, Hitler pursued his fascism and genocide in a calculated, malicious manner unseen in China or the Soviet Union. In the process of shaping Germany into the racist police state of a world superpower that he envisioned, Hitler started a war, allowing the Allies to destroy his dream.

How did the West utterly annihilate Hitler and the vision he had for Germany and for the world? Certainly not by wiping Germany off the map. When it became apparent that he was losing the war, Hitler demanded that his army fight to the last man. If there was to be no Nazi Germany, then there was to be no Germany. Many in the West didn't seem to mind that scenario.

In the end, however, it was not up to us to decide what should be done with postwar Germany. The Cold War forced us to rehabilitate the part of Germany controlled by Britain, France, and the United States into a Western democracy. The Korean War showed us that this new Germany needed its own army. As long as the Cold War continued, this army's job was to defend West Germany against the Warsaw Pact. But since reunification in 1991, Germany has taken a new role in world affairs. It is now the largest and most powerful country in Europe and, as such, is moving toward an existence as a Western European democracy just like any other. Hitler has finally lost.

Hitler expected to see his country ravaged by bombardment, invasion and occupation. That's what happens when you lose a war. But to see Germany functioning as a liberal democracy, passing a law that allows Turkish Germans to become citizens, and using its military force to bring peace and reconciliation, is the true mark of our victory in World War II.

"It is certainly important that the people here see that, for the first time this century, they have a German who has come here to lead troops—not as occupying forces, but as someone who has come to help the people here," Reinhardt, who was not even born when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, said. "My first priority is to ensure a safe and secure environment for the people of Kosovo. By this I mean all the people of Kosovo, regardless of their ethnic origin, religion, or where they live."

German soldiers under the command of a German general are now in the Balkans fighting to ensure the safety of all the locals. Were we looking for ways to make Hitler's experience in hell worse than it already is, introducing him to Reinhardt would be a nice start. Fifty-four years ago, the West won the battles that decided World War II. Now it seems we have finally won the battle for Germany itself.

Recent Herald Columns by this Columnist:
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• Don't crown George II yet, 10/1/99
• West-siders rock this soggy east coast, 9/17/99
• Creationists live in the Stone Age, 9/3/99

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