Anti-Americanism in Germany

There is a category of stories that appears to go away, suddenly forgotten, and then re-emerges with a vengeance. Anti-Americanism in Germany is one such story. It sparked global interest when the former SPD-leader, and now deputy chancellor, Franz Muntefering referred to US-owned private equity groups in Germany as locust, very much to the applause of his party, and large parts of the country.

Of course, it is well known that anti-American sentiment has gone up in Germany – as it did elsewhere – because of the Iraq war. But many Americans mistakenly believe that we must by now have passed the high watermark of Anti-Americanism in Europe, and especially in Germany. One key moment in German-US relations was the 2005 election of the decidedly pro-American Angela Merkel as chancellor. She immediately struck good relations with George W. Bush. In fact, they not only respect each other, they get on well personally. After Mr Schroder’s more overt anti-Americanisms, this came as a relief to many Americans and pro-atlanticist Germans. But note, when Ms Merkel rejected an invitation to join her new pal at his Crawford Ranch, she did so out of concern about her own popularity ratings in Germany. She did the right thing, of course, but that still tells you something about the quality of transatlantic relations.

Anti-American in Europe is not new, of course. There were protests during the Korean war, and many more during the Vietnam years. Mister Average German hated Nixon and hated Reagan even more. Transatlantic sympathies improved a little during the Clinton years, but this did not last long.

Germany’s leaders, by contrast, with the exception of Gerhard Schroder, have always publicly supported the US. Some, like Konrad Adenauer, Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl were passionate pro-Atlanticists. There is also a strong pro-transatlantic movement in Germany (I myself used to be a member of the Atlantic Bruecke, one such organisation), and when Americans come on an official visit, they mostly speak to those pro-US types. The impression they usually walk away with is of a far more transatlanticist Germany than the one that exists in reality.

The ejection from office of Mr Schroder may have been deeply satisfying to Americans (and to many Germans, too!), but one should not make the mistake to think that there has been a fundamental change in attitudes. On the contrary, I would claim that anti-US attitudes have gotten worse since, except that this deterioration has been hidden from view, as the newspapers have not written about it much - that is, until recently.

The trigger of the most recent wave of Anti-Americanism in Germany has been the proposal by the Bush administration for a tiny missile defence system to be stationed in Poland and the Czech Republic. The ringleader of this new Anti-American campaign was none other than Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who used to be Gerhard Schroder’s closest adviser, and who was widely credited to have been the architect of Schroder’s pro-Russia and anti-US course.

Steinmeier recently wrote a remarkably stupid article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, in which he warned that the US initiative would lead to a dangerous split in Europe. Here are some of the claims he made. First, he says lasting peace does not rest on deterrence, but on co-operation. This is an extremely naive view for a foreign minister to take, but it reflects age-old prejudices of the political left, which are still in denial over the impact the west’s defence policies played in the demise of communism. Steinmeier added that the missile defence system should not be cause, nor pretext for a new arms race. It is also interesting to note that Steinmeier is these days obsessed with Russia’s security interests, which he seems to talk about more than Germany’s own.

General Klaus Naumann, the former head of Nato’s military committee, later accused Steinmeier and other German politicians of monumental ignorance in a radio interview. Such outspokenness is quite rare for a military guy in Germany – even an ex-military guy. Naumann said at stake were in any case only 10 missiles that can hardly be seen as a sufficient defence against Russia’s 1000 atomic devices, most of them with multiple warheads. In any case, if Russia was ever to attack the US, it would send its missiles not the transatlantic route via Europe, but via the North Pole. In particular Naumann accused those of peddling this nonsense of deliberately misleading the German public through false information.

If this was a debate about military strategy, it would only be half as bad. But Germany’s pacifist politicians are largely ignorant and apathetic to military issues. This is about domestic politics.

What seems to be happening is that the SPD is deliberately trying to exploit the country’s anti-American mood ahead of the next election, which are due in 2009. (I have written about some of the internal politics in my column in FT Deutschland today).  Kurt Beck, the SPD leader, has recently emerged as the most outspoken critic of the missile defence system, clearly evoking the spirit of the 1980s, a decade marked by mass protests against the stationing of US Pershing II missiles on German soil.

From an American point of view, Merkel may be the ideal transatlantic leader. But the environment has been deteriorating since. One of Germany’s largest parties, the SPD, is now openly turning anti-American. It is true that the party’s leftwing, especially its youth organisation, has always been anti-American, but the leadership was usually pro-US. While Schroder may be gone, he did manage to open the floodgates. Anti-Americanism has become salonfähig in Germany to the extent that established political parties find it profitable to exploit it to their advantage. It is no longer an undercurrent – but deeply embedded in the country’s political, cultural, and also in the financial establishment.

The locust debate was therefore not nearly as isolated an incident as it appeared to be at the time. The only good news is that the Germans are chronically incapable of pursuing their strategic foreign policy interests. That was true for the old transatlantic crowd, as well as the new isolationists. While the Germans devise meticulous strategies for everything they do, foreign policy is mostly done on the hoof. It is an area that does not attract country’s brainiest people. The only upbeat element of that story is therefore that the new wave of Anti-Americanism is probably not going to be very effective. But I would not bet on this lasting forever.