Whither Germany?

Abstract

Bliss it was not, in that dawn of the new millennium, to be alive in Germany. But then where was it? Germany was at least finally normal —‘stink normal’, in the Berlin argot — and that was good enough for those previously resigned to division, a peculiarly intense nuclear threat, Honecker’s boring custodial state, and Hitler’s all too exciting Third Reich. Today’s Germans like just fine to be predictable, consistent, reliable — and immobile to the point of one court’s ruling that a person receiving unemployment benefits is entitled to turn down a job in the neighboring district because of the cultural stress the alien environment might subject him to.