The Future of the German Past

Few peoples have been so obsessed with their past as the Germans. And few have seen their obsessions change with such rapidity as have the Germans since 1989. Only a couple of years ago historians of Germany were confidently, if boringly, setting their analyses within the framework of the subsequent emergence of two 'stable and economically robust German states during the second half of the twentieth century'. (This perceptive comment was written by me in the summer of 1989, in a review article published at the beginning of 1990.) Since the Wall came tumbling down, however, the authors of general texts on Germany have had to revise their concluding chapters, substituting wise comments about the stability of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the permanence of the Wall with wise comments about the instability of the GDR and the coming of unification. Hindsight would be a wonderful thing, if only it were more resistant to change!