Germany – Page 74 – understand-culture

Weak link?

Germany wants to come up with a national security strategy (NSS) by the end of 2022. The new government started out with great ambitions in security and defense policy. However, for many allies, Germany seems to be once again a weak link and an unreliable partner in European defense. Instead of focusing on security, it should focus on a strategy for action in the event of conflict. This requires to broaden the concept of security and include more policy fields, especially technology, innovation, and internal security.

Germany’s new government started out with great ambitions in security and defense policy. The first statements and foreign trips of the new government officials to France, Poland, the US, and Ukraine, were reassuring.

However, after this rather ambitious start, hesitations, inconsistent action and messaging vis-à-vis allies, worries about how the German public would perceive government decisions, and irritatingly over-cautious moves towards Russia, have overshadowed initial impressions. For many allies, Germany seems to be once again a weak link and an unreliable partner in European defense.

Roads not Taken

The Exhibition “Roads not Taken. Or: Things Could Have Turned Out Differently.” This exhibition at the Deutsches Historisches Museum explores key turning points in German history by reconstructing the causes and circumstances of major events, and also examining alternative outcomes that were possible but did not occur. The exhibit’s very premise reflects the German logic of analyzing contingencies, actions, and omissions to understand why history unfolded as it did.

Sigmund Freud

Although Sigmund Freud was an Austrian his methods of psychoanalysis to resolve personal conflicts had tremendous influence in the entire German-speaking world, and eventually beyond. Psychoanalytical therapy involved up to three hundred individual sessions.

For Freud, as the founder of psychoanalysis, it was essential to identify unconscious emotional developments in order to understand human behavior. The earliest years of childhood are especially relevant. Psychological problems – conflicts – can be traced back to those earliest of years.

Understanding developments over very long periods of time are fundamental to Freud’s approach to conflict resolution. Tracing psychological problems far back into one’s personal history, making the unconscious conscious, is the opposite of a quick (hasty) resolution of conflict.

The Broken Jug

Heinrich von Kleist – Der zerbrochne Krug (The Broken Jug, 1808). This classic play centers on a village court case in which a judge must determine who broke a jug belonging to a local woman. The entire plot revolves around the careful reconstruction of events, examination of evidence, and the search for truth through witness testimony and logical deduction. The play is a brilliant satire of the judicial process, but at its core, it exemplifies the German logic of conflict resolution: reconstructing causes, scrutinizing evidence, and striving for objective truth, even as human flaws complicate the process.

„Streit vom Zaun brechen“

Streit vom Zaun brechen. To let a conflict get out of control. Germans prefer to hide their internal conflicts for as long as possible. Conficts attract attention and curiosity. They force the conflict parties to take a stand, to explain the problem.

This, in turn, offers management and related organizations an opportunity to get involved, to exert influence on the conflict parties, thereby reducing their ability to address the problem alone and independent of outside influence.

Germans, therefore, try their best to avoid escalating a conflict to the next management level. The side which chooses to do so is viewed as impulsive and thoughtless. Germans would rather give in a bit in order to reduce tensions than to strike back. Avoiding open conflict is seen as intelligent, restrained and prudent. Conflict is for the unsophisticated.

Der Klügere gibt nach. To be willing to compromise instead of insisting on being right; to see the other side‘s point of view as valid; to take the hit in order to reduce the tension.

Das Feuer schüren. Literally to stoke the flames. To provoke; to start a fight; to turn a difference of opinion into an open conflict; to whip up the emotions.

Germans want to be responsible for their work and to perform it independently. They want their work to be clearly defined and distinguishable from the work of their colleagues. Germans do not feel comfortable with having to explain or justify how they complete their tasks.

Every form of supervision or monitoring is a sign of mistrust. Escalating a conflict is risky, therefore, for it invites a third party, typically the next level of management, to take a closer look into how the conflict parties actually do their work. This makes them vulnerable to outside influences on how they work.

Autonomy. Greek autonomía. Independence, self-governance. From autos, selbst und nomos, law. To be responsible for oneself, self-determination, self-reliance, decision making freedom.

German Mediation Act

Emphasis on Amicable Resolution: The German Mediation Act and civil procedure (§ 278 ZPO) encourage settlement at every stage, with mediators or conciliation judges empowered to use all appropriate methods—including separate interviews—to resolve disputes amicably.

obsession with causality

Franz Kafka – Der Prozess (The Trial, 1925). Kafka’s protagonist, Josef K., is arrested and prosecuted by a mysterious authority without ever being told his crime. The novel is a nightmarish exploration of bureaucracy, guilt, and the desperate search for evidence and explanation. While Kafka’s novel ultimately highlights the frustration and impossibility of finding objective evidence in a totalitarian system, it powerfully dramatizes the German obsession with causality, procedure, and the need for rational explanation.

Revanchism

Revanchism, from French revanche or revenge, is a term used since the 1870s to describe the desire to reverse territorial losses by a country after losing a war. Revanchist politics rely on the identification of a nation, of a people, with a nation-state. This mobilizes ethnic nationalism, claiming territories outside of the state where members of the ethnic group live.

See the strong desire during the French Third Republic to regain Alsace-Lorraine from Germany after defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. French Emperor Napoleon III had declared and lost the war. In the Treaty of Frankfurt, France lost Alsace-Lorraine, which France under King Louis XIV had previously annexed from Germany in the 17th century.

French revanchism was one of the forces behind the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I. Alsace-Lorraine went back to France. Blame for the outbreak of the the Great War was pinned solely on Germany. Huge reparations were extracted from the Germans.

The United States Congress rejected the Versailles Treaty, citing its harsh, unfair and one-sided punishment of Germany, and warning against the inevitable development of German revanchism.

Alsace-Lorraine. Just one piece of territory in dispute between two neighbors. One of many examples in European history. Their experience as a people, their historical consciousness, has taught the Germans to seek lasting resolutions to conflicts. Acceptance, freely chosen, is the foundation.

All Quiet on the Western Front

Im Westen nichts Neues. (All Quiet on the Western Front, 2022). This Oscar-winning adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s novel presents World War I from a German soldier’s perspective. The film meticulously reconstructs the horrors and motivations of war, focusing on the evidence of human suffering, bureaucratic decision-making, and the negotiations leading to the armistice. Its narrative avoids stereotypes and instead seeks to understand the causes and consequences of conflict through detailed, fact-based storytelling.

More Rules of Moderation

The Germans believe that moderation can succeed only if it makes clear to all parties involved that there will be no naming a winner and a loser.

Naming one side the loser is a guaranty that the conflict resolution will not hold, that the losing party will seek to roll back, revise, reject the resolution. True acceptance, real stability, can be achieved only if both parties come away accepting a compromise.

Akzeptieren. Latin acceptare, to accept, take on, allow, approve, recognize; to come to agreement with someone; to accept an apology, a recommendation, an idea.