German Lessons for the Whole World

Berlin. The leader of the German Green Party, Felix Banaszak, recently revealed three things in a podcast: his knowledge of history, his views on the USA and his English-language skills. The politician explained that the sometimes harsh actions of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) against illegal immigrants in the United States ‘remind me of how the SA and SS behaved in the years before Adolf Hitler seized power’.

For an elected representative born in 1989, personal reminiscences of the early 1930s are astonishing in themselves. Banaszak is clearly unfamiliar with any standard historical work on the SS and Hitler's storm troopers. He is also presumably unaware that during the two terms of Barack Obama, who is highly regarded by the European left, the ICE transported more illegal immigrants out of the country than the notorious Donald Trump has done so far.

Banaszak also accused the president and his agency of referring to illegal immigrants as ‘aliens,’ which he said was a form of ‘dehumanisation.’ He apparently associates the word exclusively with Hollywood-Sspace-Monsters, whereas in official English it is simply the common term for foreigners. Sting's wonderful 1987 song ‘I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien, I'm an Englishman in New York’ is known in Germany only to people over 50. This simplistic interpretation of language by the monolingual Green Party leader is not quite as serious as his other two estimates, but it shows a consistent willingness to always assume the worst when it comes to Trump.

Ritualised Outrage

The Green Party is currently a fairly insignificant opposition party with voter support of between 11 and 13 per cent. However, the image of the USA as a fascist dictatorship is not limited to this group or the left wing in general. The moral condemnation of Germany's major partner now extends far into the governing parties, the SPD and CDU, and into most of the long-established media. In other words, it is part of the official German mainstream. It therefore fits that, according to a recent survey by the Allensbach opinion research institute, 65 percent of Germans consider the US a ‘threat to world peace,’ placing Americans only slightly behind Russians in the Germans' view. In the States, however, one can take comfort in the fact that the Teutonic fervour for lecturing is also directed at a whole range of other countries.

Foreign Policy as an Educational Project

In a recent interview with the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper, Dirk Pejril, president of Lower Saxony's Office for the Protection of the Constitution, said that in the United States, democracy and the rule of law were being ‘swept away like a tsunami’. In other words, he considers the most important country in the West to be a bona fide dictatorship. This is all the more surprising given that counter-terrorism is one of the tasks of the German domestic intelligence service.

Numerous warnings of imminent attacks in Germany have come from the United States in the past. There is a particularly high degree of dependence on Washington in this area. The head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution does not seem to care. CDU foreign policy expert Norbert Röttgen accused Trump of threatening the existence of the EU with his new security strategy; SPD Member of Parliament Martin Schulz even described his NATO partner the US as an ‘enemy power’ in an interview with Der Spiegel. They were fully supported by numerous media outlets. The Süddeutsche Zeitung ran the headline: ‘The US has crossed the threshold into fascism.’

Hopefully, little of this will reach the White House. In politics, as in nature, there are tipping points. At some point, the US could decide to stop supplying the country of arrogant politicians with intelligence, LNG and high-performance chips for a while.

Germany's government leaders have recently been trying to escape transatlantic dependence by moving closer to China. However, Foreign Minister Johann Wadepuhl torpedoed this strategy in his first months in office when he accused Beijing, without any evidence, of supporting Russia in the war against Ukraine. The response in China was quite indignant; when Chancellor Friedrich Merz flies to China in the spring, he will first have to repair the broken porcelain.

Lectures for the Whole World

When it comes to less important countries, Berlin's urge to lecture knows no bounds. CDU leader Friedrich Merz accused Argentine President Javier Milei of ‘ruining’ his country and ‘trampling’ on its citizens – the same Milei who can now boast five per cent growth and a balanced budget, while Germany slides into its fourth year of recession. The Green Environment Minister of the former "Ampel coalition" government, Steffi Lemcke, rebuked the Poles during a visit to Warsaw for their planned entry into nuclear power. The German ambassador in Bern, Michael Flügger, told the Swiss that they should kindly accept the framework agreement with the EU and, ideally, join the community of states right away. The fact that a majority of the Swiss do not want this is, in his view, an insignificant objection. Many German politicians believe that Hungary, with its conservative leader Viktor Orban, should be thrown out of the EU anyway. German MEP Katarina Barley suggested on Deutschlandfunk radio that the country should be cut off from EU funds and thus, in her words, ‘starved out’.

Incidentally, it is interesting to note which countries the German political establishment views much more gently. In 2019, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier of the SPD congratulated the Iranian regime on the anniversary of its seizure of power. However, he refused to send a congratulatory telegram to Donald Trump after his first election in 2016, saying he did not want to ‘whitewash’ anything’, having previously described him as a ‘hate preacher’ . Steinmeier also paid a friendly visit to Brazil’s President Lula da Silva, a head of state who allows deep restrictions on freedom of expression and opposition rights in his country.

Provincialism with Global Aspirations

In addition to age-old patterns such as anti-Americanism, something relatively new is emerging here: foreign policy provincialism. The fact that foreign policy does not consist of morally arrogant schoolmastering of other states, but rather of representing one's own interests diplomatically and with a discreet voice – this basic principle was once self-evident to all heads of the Foreign Office up to Hans-Dietrich Genscher of the Liberals. Gradually, this knowledge, which was more or less accepted throughout the world, eroded in Berlin.

Annalena Baerbock, at the latest, confidently combined her urge to lecture China, for example, with her now world-famous interpretation of the English language (‘bacon of hope’). Since she took office, German foreign policy has primarily served to reinforce the country's own sense of moral superiority – and it is geared first and foremost towards winning the approval of the domestic media. In some ways, Germany, which is no longer quite as agile economically and technologically, now appears a bit like the unpopular old teacher who knows that her popularity ratings are not going to improve anyway. This makes her all the more rigorous and strict in disciplining everyone around her.

The reaction is interesting when the criticism changes direction. Then the Germans become sensitive. In response to comments from the USA that freedom of expression in Germany is not particularly good, Foreign Minister Johann Wadepuhl said: ‘I don't think anyone needs to give us advice on that.’