I mean, my first reaction is to go through it with scissors and point out all the stuff he leaves ut that would complicate the picture, but it doesn't really matter. The Junker's manorialism was destroyed by the Soviets in 1945 and besides West Germany dominates the new Germany politicly and economically.

And his political and economical analysis of the re-unification with West paying for it all misses the Western economic elites taking over the ownership in the East and the East role in keeping the value of the currency down. And so on.

There is probably East-West splits in Germany today, but it is more reasonable to look at re-unification than an economic system that was abolished eighty years ago.

If Western Europe really wanted that, they would have come up with some words to their anthem....

West Germany was anything but an artificial construct. It was the historical Germany, being almost geographically identical to what was, for almost 1,200 years, the only Germany. Julius Caesar named the land ...

wow. What a ludicrous premise. So yeah. no, just no in the first instance.

This essay is a wonderful example of "casual" bigotry. Thanks, Helen. File in "Romanticism" / Contemporary Polemic / AfD Sympathizer / Failed States.

2. Answer: Comparison of political (ethnic) divisions in the other 26, especially the united kingdoms' and Catalunya at the moment, demonstrate why it is always a mistake to isolate current events from their historical, contemporaneous contexts. Indeed, but for Roman empire and the Napoleanic dynasty --not US magisterial authority after VJ Day-- neither "nationalism" across europe nor EU federalism would be of much concern to the author today. He'd be a back-stabbing courtier.

3. "Politics are local." And local politics invariable concern distribution of tax receipts among citizens. Adenauer and Kennedy understood that identity, as was convenient for them, as anethema [!] to the demos during Reconstruction.

4. Germans are heavily taxed. And Brits are about to be retroactively taxed heavily, too, for the same purpose --mediating political malfeasance including cost of re-unification. #2019Charge, #NoRetroTax and tax avoidance

With Donald Trump's wavering on Nato and his noisy anti-German protectionism, along with Brexit, the West may no longer seem vital to Germany's future.

Hawes is barking up the wrong tree.


Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.