Obamamania and the Germans

I have paid particular attention to the German aspect of Barack Obama's trip for many reasons. The spectacle of the Berlin speech struck me as grossly overdone in terms of location, the tone of the speech and the presence of 200,000 viewers. It would have been much more appropriate for a visiting American president than for a candidate-even one with Obama's ego.

In light of Germany's history, eyebrows have also been raised about the reaction of Germans to Obama's presence. The sight of 200,000 Germans wildly cheering a charismatic and gifted speaker brings back troubling memories for many even if, as I would insist, this is a new Germany-not the Germany of the 1930s and 40s.

I have a personal connection to Germany. I first set foot on German soil in 1966 as a young American soldier. I spent two and a half years there, almost all of that period in Erlangen, a university town 20 kilometers from Nuremberg. In subsequent years, I became sort of an amateur scholar on the history of the Third Reich. Being greatly attached to Germany, I have returned countless times and eventually wrote a history of Erlangen a few years back. I freely admit that I am a Germanophile, and I think the Germans are basically a good and decent people. I also maintain that Germany, at least since the 1960s, has admirably met its responsibility to confront and acknowledge its past, much as we Americans have acknowledged our history of slavery and discrimination.

My reaction to the Obama appearance in Germany is a little different. I never expected for a second that the crowd was going to break out in "Sieg Heils". My question is why Obama met with such an overwhelming reaction in Berlin.

During my last trip to Erlangen in June, I met with several friends and colleagues who are professional people in the university, education and politics. I also spoke at a local gymnasium English class. Everyone is interested in the American election. Yet, as much as the Germans are interested in America, I sense that their knowledge about our country, its people and institutions is rather superficial even for educated people. For example, everybody wanted to know about Obama, yet few had any knowledge about John McCain. Some were not even sure about his name. I sensed also that many of the people I spoke to had high expectations for what a President Obama would accomplish. Why is this? (For that matter, why do so many Americans have such an inflated image of this man-one not justified by his experience and accomplishments?) Is it because of the novelty of his ethnic background-or his youthful appearance-or his speaking ability?

Or is it that Germans look to Obama to end the war in Iraq, end all wars and bring peace to the world?

That is an aspect that deserves more attention. The Germans lost two disastrous world wars in the 20th century, each one bringing misery to the German nation and its people. The last one also brought international damnation upon Germany and a legacy that they are still trying to overcome. The last thing Germans want to see is another world war. That is understandable and should be respected.

While German pacifism is certainly understandable, I suspect they are forgetting one lesson of Hitler and the Nazi era. That I would call the lesson of Munich and Neville Chamberlain in 1938. There are certain people who cannot be negotiated with. In that category, I place people like Hitler and Islamic fanatics. They are fanatical and they are evil. During the Cold War, we could negotiate with the Soviets because, whatever they were, they were not irrational. The idea of mutual assured destruction was always in their minds. Today's enemies, people like Al-Qaida, Ahmadinejad and Hezbollah, are not rational. They don't care if the world goes up in flames. They don't care if they die-as long as their version of Islam triumphs world-wide. What is there to negotiate? We can leave Iraq tomorrow, and our enemies will not lay down their arms. Furthermore, Germany and the rest of Europe are just as threatened as America.

Dennis Prager is an LA-based talk show host whom I respect greatly. He is a practicing Jew, who also says that the Germany of today has done an admirable job of acknowledging its past-much more so than some other countries who were on the wrong side of World War 2. Yet, in discussing the Germans and the Obama speech in Berlin, Prager made the point (and I am paraphrasing)that there is a vast difference between fighting evil and the notion that fighting is evil.

I think that is a point worthy of thought on both sides of the Atlantic.