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Two Wars to End All Wars
German militant pacifism is a peace of history.
The nineteenth century German was an upright moral character, loyal
to
governing authority, hard-working and stoic. Chivalry and self-sacrifice
were
the orders of his day. Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, helped
to
usher in the era of rectitude we now locate as English Victorianism:
Much of
it was imported from Germany, like the Christmas tree, by Albert. The
current
House of Windsor holding regal positions in England are descended from
Germans. The name Windsor was adopted to sound more English during the
First
World War.
That Germanic chivalry and rectitude got blasted to bits from 1914
to 1918.
The mood changed and that force of energy split. Part went into the
decadence
of the Weimar Republic. The darker half went into militarism, Nazi style.
Another war. Another humiliation. Again German character was blasted
to bits.
Since the Second World War, Germany is a nation that eschews patriotism.
To
be unpatriotic, condemning of one's own history and resolutely pacifist
is to
be a good German.
Americans may scratch their heads at a country unwilling to go to war
even
with the endorsement of the U.N. Security Council. Yet lurking ever
near the
surface of the German psyche are all too many memories of self-induced
destruction. By contrast, French psychology is rather more tortuous.
James Clark
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(c) 2003 Millennium Relief & Development Services, vol. 2 no. 31
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