Home >> Europe >> Germany

     Email   Print 

Election Year in German

Lorna Thomas - 5/22/2009

This year elections are held in Germany with Presidential and national elections taking place, as well as European and state elections in Saxony, Thuringia, Saarland and Brandenburg. Analysts consider that results of this “super election year” may well see a shift in the country's political landscape.

On May 23, 2009, the German Federal Assembly meets specially to elect the next President of the German Federal Republic by means of secret ballot. The Assembly comprises 612 members of the Bundestag or national parliament and 612 representatives of the 16 Lander or states.

Germany's Head of State is elected for five years. While the role is regarded as largely ceremonial and one of moral authority, the President also represents his country in the international arena, concluding treaties with foreign states. The President proposes a candidate for election as Federal Chancellor by the Bundestag, and appoints members of the government, judges and top civil servants.

Candidates for the 2009 election include the outgoing German President and CDU candidate, Hort Koehler, university president Gesine Schwann of the Social Democratic Party and actor Peter Sodann of the Left Party.

During his annual speech, given in a Berlin church on 24 March, 2009, President Koehler a former head of the IMF, said the economic crisis is “a test for democracy as a whole." He said "the market needs rules and morals." "It needs a strong state, which sets rules for the market and ensures their enforcement."

At the same time concerns exist that the economic crisis, with rising unemployment and discontent, could escalate into social and political crises. Gesine Schwann has warned of the danger of unrest due to the economic crisis.

In 2005 President Koehler told the Knesset during a visit to Israel that: “Chauvinism and anti-Semitism have not vanished from Germany. Turns of speech that trivialize the Holocaust are a scandal. We oppose them all.”

However, anti-Semitism and racism have continued to increase in Germany and in Europe.

While the early months of 2009 saw the controversy of Benedict XVI proposing the rehabilitation of a Catholic priest who denies the Holocaust, rising anti-Semitism and anti-foreigner sentiment in Germany and Europe are occurring as well as increased right-wing, neo-Nazi activity in Saxony where the extreme right NPD has been represented in the Saxon parliament since 2004.

A large demonstration was held by neo-Nazis, skinheads and members of the extreme right in February on the anniversary of the bombing of Dresden. Holocaust denial and relativism is high amongst extreme right groups, who on the other hand, greatly inflate the numbers killed in the air raid and refer to it as a “Holocaust” of bombing.

2009 is a year where the past seems more than ever to be casting its shadow over the future. Therefore, it may be wise to consider a warning from the past given by one of Germany's best known survivors of the Holocaust and to also consider the relationship between church and state in Germany's as well as note the concerns of Germany's own leaders regarding rising extreme right wing activity.

Past nominations for German President have not been without controversy with regard to opinion on Germany's Nazi past. In 1993 Chancellor Helmut Kohl of the CDU nominated a virtually unknown East German candidate for the country's top position in the first presidential election since German unification, taking place in Berlin instead of Bonn.

In October 1993 Dean E. Murphy wrote in the LA Times:

“He was intended as the candidate of unity, a pious easterner who would make history as the first president elected since the two Germanys became one. Instead, Steffen Heitmann has managed to offend, shock, anger, alienate and outrage everyone from working women to Jews--and the election is still seven months away.”
“Presidency - In a United Germany, a Sharp Divide - Notoriety haunts Kohl's handpicked unity candidate as he polarizes voters far more than he reconciles their differences”

Steffen Heitmann, at the time Justice Minister of Saxony and an ordained priest and church lawyer, caused such outrage in Germany by expressing views generally associated with the extreme right, it resulted in the withdrawal of his candidature.

Though he did not deny the Holocaust outright, knowing it is documented by an overwhelming amount of historical evidence, nevertheless, his views relativising the Holocaust, a politically unthinkable stance in Germany at the time, and his comments including on foreigners and the role of women, caused many Germans to feel great unease about his representing their country in its highest office and moral role.

Calling the Holocaust a “unique” event that should be put into perspective since the “postwar period finally ended with German unification” and saying that history does not repeat itself, Heitmann told the German newspaper, Suddeutsche Zeitung that he did not believe “a special role for Germany should flow from this until the end of history. The postwar period finally ended with German unification, and the time has come to put this event in perspective.” (see “Kohl's Candidate for President Pulls Out,” Craig R. Whitney, New York Times, 26 November, 1993)

Chancellor Kohl was criticized both within and outside the CDU party for his nomination of Heitmann and suffered one of his worst political defeats, but continued supporting the candidate from Dresden.

According to The Independent (2.1.1996), as “he sought to relativise the crimes of Auschwitz,” Steffen Heitmann's comments, narrowly escaped being “airbrushed out of history”. While his minders wanted Suddeutsche Zeitung to drop the comments, the first edition of the newspaper had already gone to press and Heitmann's views went on to generate enormous controversy leading to the withdrawal of his candidacy a few weeks later.

Though Heitmann received endorsements from Chancellor Kohl as well as far right groups, the man referred to as Germany's “moral conscience”, Ignatz Bubis, warned of the likely consequences of Heitmann attaining office and influence saying he would make anti-Semitism respectable in Germany.

Ignatz Bubis survived a Nazi labour camp and became head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, its main Jewish organization. He was the leading advocate for Jews living in post-war Germany.

According to a New York Times article of 12-10-1993 “Kohl Faces Rising Storm on Choice for Presidency,” Mr Bubis met with Heitmann following his statements and warned that his election as President "would make anti-Semitism respectable in Germany again."
(Born in Germany and describing himself as a “ German citizen of Jewish faith”, in 1994 Ignatz Bubis was himself suggested by the weekly newspaper Die Woche to run for German president on behalf of the FDP.)

Widely known as the “conscience of the German people”, on Mr Bubis' death in 1999, Berlin's Der Tagesspiegel called him “Reconciliator, Admonisher, Moral Conscience of Germany” while German President Rau told ZDF television: "Ignatz Bubis tried like no one else to make sure that the shadows of the past don't burden the future."

An obituary in The Guardian on 16 August 1999 stated that the last year of his life was dominated by a row over the Holocaust when the liberal novelist, Martin Walser, criticised government plans for a national Holocaust memorial in Berlin, complaining that “the Germans were constantly being made to atone for the crimes of the Nazis.”

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder stated that "Despite the sorrow that the Nazis brought on him and his own family, he committed himself tirelessly to reconciliation." However, during the last interview before his death, conducted with STERN, speaking of his life's work, Bubis concluded "I've achieved nothing or almost nothing." His statement was elaborated on in a 2005 interview with SPIEGEL when Paul Spiegel, his successor as president of the Central Council of Jews, recounted how he had remonstrated with him saying he had achieved so much. Paul Spiegel said he only later understood what Ignatz Bubis was trying to say when he saw anti-Semitism become much worse and reminiscent of the situation in Germany in 1933. In November 2008, the current president, Charlotte Knobloch who has called for a government ban on the NPD, issued a dire warning against the rise of neo-Nazi parties and said she often received death threats.

Though accused of betrayal of state secrets in 2000, Steffen Heitmann remained a member of the Saxon Parliament till 2009 - he has been called the “Father of the Saxon constitution.” Heitmann is co-editor of the conservative Christian-oriented weekly, Rheinischer Merkur with amongst others, Jean-Claude Juncker, chairman of the Eurogroup finance ministers whom President Sarkozy has in the past supported for the powerful future post of President of Europe.

Curator of the Bible and Culture Foundation, Heitmann has also held positions as President of the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony, President of the ESWiD or Evangelical Settlement Work in Germany, and Vice-Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Dresden Frauenkirche Foundation which oversaw the rebuilding of the church consecrated on 30 October 2005 which had lain in ruins in Communist East Germany since 1945 after the Allies' raid on Dresden, the city of Heitmann's birth in 1944.

While President Sarkozy advocates closer ties between church and state for Europe and has written a book on the subject, on 29 April 1997, Steffen Heitmann ratified a concordat between the State of Saxony and the Vatican governing church-state relations. (In German history, 29 April is the anniversary of Hitler's marriage to Eva Braun, the day before their death.)

Closer ties between church and state played a significant but not illustrious role in Germany's Nazi past in the 20th century and this should serve as a warning of the dangers of a liaison between church and state. The Reichskonkordat of 20 July, 1933 between Nazi Germany and the Catholic Church is acknowledged as allowing Hitler's unhindered rise to total dictatorship and also giving international and recognition to the new Nazi regime.

On 14 July, 1933 days before it was signed by Cardinal Pacelli, Hitler told his cabinet that "an opportunity has been given to Germany in the Reichskonkordat and a sphere of influence has been created that will be especially significant in the urgent struggle against international Jewry."

The Concordat, Nazi Germany's first international treaty was negotiated by Cardinal Pacelli who later became Pope Pius XII and whose proposed canonization by Pope Benedict XVI is opposed by Jews. It gave recognition to the new German government internationally at a time when it was still viewed with distrust, and according to Hitler also showed the world that National Socialism was “not hostile to religion.” (Hitler was himself raised in the Catholic church.)

Through the Reichskonkordat the church took to refrain from any partisan political activity and the Catholic Centre party which had offered previously opposition to the Nazis was disbanded. Through the Reichskonkordat, the Catholic Church acknowledged the new Nazi government and its bishops were to swear loyalty to the German Reich and cause the clergy to honour it and “to prevent anything injurious which might threaten it”. Through the Church's hierarchy endorsing the Nazi regime, its members were also influenced to give their allegiance to the Reich. The Reichskonkordat remains valid in Germany.

While many were initially deceived into thinking that Christianity and the Nazi regime could co-exist, in 1941 Martin Bornman, head of the Party Chancellery and Hitler's private secretary, who played an influential role in the Reich, would correctly say that National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable. An ideology based on hatred and persecution and murder is diametrically opposed to Christ's instruction to love your neighbour as yourself, to do unto men as you would have them do to you and to even love your enemies.

Hitler soon broke the terms of the Concordat which had promised religious rights and freedoms to the Catholic church. He also attempted to unite the 28 Protestant churches under a Reichsbishop. The intention was to replace Christianity, to remove the Bibles from the churches, replacing them with Mein Kampf as the most important document. (For many, the Fuhrer assumed a messianic or god-like status, the loyalty demanded likened to the cult of emperor worship, again something not compatible with Christianity, as Christ taught only God should be worshipped.) Some of the Protestant churches had been infiltrated by the pro-Nazi “German Christian Faith Movement” which espoused so-called “Positive Christianity,” portraying Christ, a Jew, as an “active” Aryan fighter against the Jews. Hitler saw himself as a “fighter against the Jews.” Protestant leaders, like Martin Niemoller, although initially supportive of Hitler, resisted once realising the intent of his racial ideologies, and were sent to concentration camps as were those of the Catholic faith who offered resistance.

What began with anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia would in one form or other bring suffering upon multiple millions around the world, as well as on Germans themselves. The Nazi Reich with its policies based on hate and racism and violence did not solve Germany's problems in the past.

In November 2008 on the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the event often referred to as the start of the Holocaust, Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans to take a stand against racism.

She said: "Indifference is the first step towards endangering essential values."

"Xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism must never be given an opportunity in Europe again," she added.

But, as the past begins to cast its dark shadows over the future, it must be considered that if those who hold xenophobic, racist or anti-Semitic views, were to attain positions of great influence in the political and/or religious sphere, this could once again result in a time of great suffering.

The fears of a Holocaust survivor and Germany's “moral conscience” who former German President Rau said “tried like no one else to make sure that the shadows of the past don't burden the future” would prove well-founded.

Those who deny or relativise the past are apt to repeat history.