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Why I like the Germans

As part of the stream of propaganda designed to make us (British) aquiesce to our new status as an American colony (hey - quit complaining - we even get to elect our own colonial governor) there seems to be a flood of anti-German material on the telly these days - relentless series about the Second World War, like Band of Brothers, emphasising our connection with the Yanks. Unsurprisingly, considering this media hype, German residents and visitors to this country have been attacked.

Much of this material is about the Nazis, and the equation runs Germans = Nazis. The Germans are to be demonised for ever and are never to be allowed to stop apologising for being German, even if they were born long after the end of the Nazis. The Germans, quite rightly, are getting sick of this. So am I.

The Nazis and the gas chambers were (so far as I can see - maybe I'm wrong) a pretty unique historical event. It is true that the number of people murdered by the British, French, Arabs, Americans etc is far greater - most of the native population of North and South America and Australia, as well as vast numbers of Africans and Asians - 100 million, 200 million - I don't know. But these people were (mostly) killed as part of colonial wars of expansion or during the suppression of revolts. There is something uniquely barbaric about isolating a part of your own society, blaming them for all social ills, bullying and terrorising people in concentration camps and reducing them to walking skeletons, and them gassing them.

Sure, let's not forget the Nazis. How in a country as cultured as Germany, the land of Goethe, Holderlin, Herman Hesse, did this come about?

At the end of the first world war there was a revolution in Germany. Soldiers and sailors returning from the war set up revolutionary committees in many parts of Germany - in the ports of Kiel and Bremen, in the capital Berlin, in Munich, and in the industrial area of the Ruhr. Germany at that time was the most advanced industrial country in Europe - if that revolution had succeeded the whole history of the world would have been different. The revolutionaries were mainly marxist, but of a more libertarian and democratic kind than the Bolsheviks. Their leaders, Rosa Luxemburg (who was jewish) and Karl Liebknecht had opposed the war and also the authoritarianism of Lenin and the Bolsheviks. It was Rosa Luxemburg who said "one mistake by the working class is better than a thousand correct decisions by the Central Committee."

That revolution represented a high point of German idealism - its defeat caused a reaction in the opposite direction - from fairness and decency to a cult of evil.

Yeah, sure, you can argue that the Nazis were a product of German culture. But any culture, given the wrong circumstances (in Germany's case the hyper-inflation and starvation of the 1930s) can show a bad side. We hear little condemnation of the mass murder of colonialism, the genocide of the native Americans etc. During the war against the Nazis, the British administration in India carried out policies which resulted in the deaths of between 3 and 4 million people in the Bengal Famine of 1943 - one of my links is to material about this.

The particular evil and brutality of the Nazis was partly due to the polarisation of German society in the 1930s - there was virtually a 10 year civil war within Germany - following on from the suppression of the revolution by the "Frei Korps" - in which the Nazis crushed the opposition. And of course it wasn't unique to Germany either - Poland, the Ukraine, and the Baltic States had Nazis too - as did this country and Ireland. What we should not forget is what we human beings are capable of, given the wrong circumstances.

So to present day Germany. Well, to my regret I've never had the chance to live in Germany but I've hitched across it on several occasions - it's the easiest country in Europe to hitch-hike in - you get lifts in 10 minutes in Germany in places you wouldn't stand a chance in this country. I have found Germans to be incredibly kind, courteous, sensitive people - I have often been fed, or invited back to people's homes. There is no country more hyper aware of the Nazis - if you're worried about a renascent Nazi Germany, I have to say I don't think there's a cats chance in hell - I would be more worried about America, France, or the cuddley Christian fascism of Mr Blair. I'm sure if you want to find neo-Nazis in Germany you can - although I've been lucky enough not to meet any. Present day Germany is a much more decent and civilised country than this one - a liberal foreign policy since the end of the war, epitomised by the way the German chancellor, Herr Schroder, is currently standing up to American militarism.

I am going to end with a little story. You like stories, don't you?

When hitch-hiking from Munich to Rotterdam a few years ago, I had a lift from an overweight man in his 40s driving a white van - what in Britain, would be described as 'white van man'. Every time he saw the police, he gave them a mock 'Heil Hitler' salute.

He invited me to a free open-air rock concert in his home town of Mainz, given by a band called something like the Boomshaks, who sing famous German rock songs in a way that charactured the stage performances of German rock stars. They had the crowd, which was a mixture of all kinds of people, young and old, different races, cracking up with laughter. They ended the concert by singing, with the crowd, 99 Red Balloons, an anti-war song, and John Lennon's Imagine in English. There was such a feeling of light-hearted, good-natured happiness. I remember thinking that these people would be very unhappy Nazis.

Afterwards we took a crate of beer back to his chaotic squalid flat. Next day his ex-wife turned up with their adopted, black, disabled, son, who they obviously loved dearly.

There, have I broken enough German stereotypes for you?