by Peter Löcke //
Homeland, identity or even patriotism? Thin ice. Very thin ice. The mere mention of the terms causes beads of sweat on the foreheads of politicians and creative artists alike. The words somehow smell forbidden on the right and are therefore avoided. This is precisely why it is worth addressing the issue. If not in the club of clear words, then where? I'll start on a small scale, with local patriotism.
Are you from Lower Bavaria or Upper Bavaria, Middle Franconia, Upper Franconia or Lower Franconia? That makes a big difference. After all, you're not just from Bavaria. Are you from Emsland, Sauerland, the Rhineland, Westphalia or the Pott? I know from my own experience how important it is for many people to formulate this precisely. They don't just come from NRW. People are proud of their region, their home. It creates identity. The region in which you live or grew up is associated with a very specific attitude to life and a sense of home. A mentality. Strengths that you pride yourself on, but also endearing weaknesses that you confront with self-irony. Sometimes all it takes is twenty kilometers as the crow flies and a different language, a different dialect, is spoken in the truest sense of the word. Then the people in the village pub turn around and wonder "You're a newcomer? You're probably not from here?". Local patriotism is something legitimate and unsuspicious. Here, people are allowed to be proud of themselves and their origins. Quite the opposite of being German. That's something to be ashamed of. To be educated to be ashamed.
German patriotism is suspect, is unspeakable due to the undeniable historical guilt. German history is compressed into twelve years. Even the much-cited "grace of late birth" does not help. Helmut Kohl was fiercely attacked for this phrase at the time. Now one might think that with even later births, i.e. from generation to generation, the internalized German sense of guilt becomes weaker. The opposite is the case. The feeling of guilt has become an almost pathological self-flagellation.
You may be familiar with the images from 2013 of Angela Merkel standing on stage after an election victory, snatching a small German flag from her party colleague Hermann Gröhe and disposing of it with a disgusted look on her face. This happened thirty years after the Kohl quote. What is the situation today, almost ten years after Merkel's appearance? The disgust with Germany exhibited by the former Chancellor has reached a new level.
"Patriotism, love of the fatherland, always made me sick. I didn't know what to do with Germany and still don't to this day."
Robert Habeck wrote this in his book "Patriotism: A Leftist Plea". To be fair, this quote is also older and naturally taken out of context. Moreover, in 2010, when the book was published, Germany was not yet Habeck's employer. So how does he think today? What is Robert Habeck's understanding of his office? After all, he swore an oath as a minister.
"This is a misunderstanding of what an oath of office means at this time."
With these words and indignation in his voice, Habeck criticized Hungarian President Viktor Orbán for blocking the EU's oil embargo. The scoundrel Orban thought of his own people first and not of Europe. How can he? Now everyone can think what they like of Orban, but he is fulfilling his oath of office. Does Habeck do the same? No. He even admitted elsewhere that Germany was of course harming itself with the sanctions.
"I swear that I will devote my strength to the welfare of the German people, increase its benefit, avert harm from it ...".
I could swear an oath that the oath of office reads like this or something similar. I could also swear that no law has been passed according to which the meaning of the oath has changed and that today, as a German minister, you swear by a European constitution. Oh well. At his swearing-in ceremony, Habeck did not say Volk, but Bevölkerung, because for Habeck the word Volk is a Nazi term. Another bon mot from the German Economics Minister. Does that make Habeck an anti-patriot? According to his own words, he is not.
"You need a narrative that focuses on change, justice and internationality. I call this commitment left-wing patriotism."
Habeck said this in his manifesto, aka book, directly after his famous statement that the thought of Germany makes him want to vomit. Habeck sings the Internationale. If you go from the small to the big, he is the following: As a Lübeck native he is a proud Hanseatic, as a German he is unproud, but he is all the prouder as a European and citizen of the world. It would make me dizzy to strut through life like that.
What am I proud of? Unfortunately, I am not very patriotic. Neither locally, nationally nor internationally. However, I am proud to have remained human over the last two years. And I could never write and work for people I think suck.
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16 Responses
...the state and its citizens...and at an even greater distance: the Bundeswehr...It is not called: our fellow citizens, our politicians, our soldiers...and there is no "we" either. The division of society continues unabated. The corona cohorts of students have become entrenched in the group dynamic and are fighting each other...divide et impera...anyone who appeals here will be labeled "too right-wing"...What seems particularly dangerous to me is the extreme extrapolation of those who think differently in order to belittle them - and thereby elevate oneself. Something that has been a particularly prominent stylistic device among the Greens for some time now...(Putin-style stirrups?...)
How wise, but hedonism can be found on many paths! Who today still has the decency to greet someone who walks past them? But the esteem and respect are gone and why? Because that's exactly how it is in our Bundestag! We no longer have politicians we can look up to and who stand up for the common PEOPLE and live a patriotism that makes a country stand up and leads it into a promising future. This comic alliance of the traffic lights is really just damp powder and not worth a penny except to be stuffed into the back pipe to dry out and then ignite and blow out far away.
My father was drafted into the Wehrmacht after his apprenticeship in 1942 at the age of 18. Even as a recruit, he was supposed to be shot for draft evasion. He actually wanted to become a fighter pilot, but at that time only a few were trained, as the war had apparently already been won. In the end, he experienced the Russian campaign in a regular Wehrmacht unit, where, as he said, they took no prisoners and did not allow themselves to be captured. Perpetrators and victims instead of black and white. As a German, I am ashamed of the persecution of Jews, Sinti and Roma, the euthanasia of disabled people, but also that the masses let the fascists do their thing and ducked away. Apparently, this is always possible and not only in Germany, as we have seen. It would be nice if we had all learned from this. Nevertheless, I can say that I am happy to be German without being incredibly proud of it and looking down on other people. I enjoy the rich culture, the inventive spirit, the art of engineering, the impulses that came from Germany and Austria in the past - Mozart and Porsche or Handel and Dürer. After all, healthy patriotism is not chauvinism. In 1962, French President de Gaulle gave a speech in Bonn - in German - from the balcony of Bonn City Hall, calling on the Germans to show healthy national pride. I think the old man was right.
I won't say anything about it, because the VS understands criticism of the government as a deligitimization of the constitution, you can only find the state of Germany sh***e like Habeck and comrades, but not the government.
So, for the slackers to file away: I didn't say anything about it.
Dear Mr. Lücke, you have focused a lot on our 'Economics Minister' Mr. Habeck.
That's a good thing, because .... you might have had to quote Joschka Fischer (German Foreign Minister under the Red/Greens from 1999 to 2005), Claudia Roth (Deputy President of the Bundestag), .... and other Alliance 90/The Greens party members about their opinion on the 'concept of Germany', ... then it wouldn't have remained ".... puking", but what was perhaps still a harmless stomach upset would have developed into a serious gastritis.
We don't need German patriotism! After all, we are all Ukrainian patriots now, including the Greens. If, after the umpteenth delivery of heavy equipment (ugh, you don't say heavy weapons), Germany has a nuclear meltdown, then the most tiresome chapter in German history will finally be closed. The fact that Biden, Johnson and Macron are using their arsenal to avenge us is not something we should test on the basis of our international popularity. After all, they will hardly sacrifice their own people for us. Nevertheless, we should be grateful to the Greens, especially Anton Hofreiter and, of course, ASZ: no more people in Germany, therefore no more lateral thinkers, corona and climate deniers and right-wingers and, most importantly, no more unvaccinated people. The fact that CO2 emissions are also zero by definition is ultimately worth this national suicide. If we hurry, we can still achieve climate neutrality in 2022. And all our graves will certainly be blooming with color. The transformation of our entire way of living and working (Angela Merkel on 22.04.2021 in the 19:00 today news) will then also be irrevocably complete. If that's not a success for our Jamaica government across the board, then what is?
Unfortunately, I am not familiar with the abbreviation ASZ and, despite all my efforts in searching, for example in the Scholz cabinet including the second row or in the federal board of the Greens including previous appointments, the penny won't drop. Please, who is meant by that?
Hello Mr. Schneider,
Nice to read you here again. Dr. Aßmann probably meant Agnes-(M)arie Strack-Zimmermann aka Thunderstruck, who was still on a talk show tour as a coronavirus expert a year ago.
Btt, for you and anyone else who is interested: there is a wonderful debate between Ulrike Guérot and Matthias Burchardt (moderated by G. Kaiser) that has to do with the topic of this column. Europe of nation states or European republic?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl7KFGpN4DY
The journey is heading towards a European republic. Unfortunately, people who advocate a Europe of nation states are quickly labeled as nationalists, as "selfish patriots".
Despite mutual points of view, the discussion is listening, appreciative and, above all, not black and white.
Dear Mr. Löcke,
Thank you very much for your explanation.
When it comes to Europe, I'm not so sure whether the journey is really heading towards a European republic or rather towards a European autocracy of immature Karl Schwab disciples who have surrendered their identity and the last remnants of their independent thinking when they joined this elitist club of this one competent but completely clueless climate change denier. When I talk to Polish colleagues and they explain to me that Poland is being forced by the EU to abandon the philanthropic regulation introduced half a decade ago (https://www.windbranche.de/news/nachrichten/artikel-30838-windenergie-boom-in-polen-durch-10h-abstandsregelung-bedroht) and to anticipate the policy of the German green-stupid city-affine haters of old white people, i.e. to give people the 250 m high climate change generation machines (see https://www.nnz-online.de/news/news_lang.php?ArtNr=273203 - reader dialogue on the subject) almost to the front garden, then I realize how far-sighted the decision of the democratically experienced British was to turn their backs on this corrupt pigsty of venal politicians called the EU.
The politician and gun fan with a particularly big mouth who appears in the ARD documentary (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trvN1BzkDGUfrom min 22:20), I have asked countless times in public whether and how much money he received for this performance. I'm still waiting for the answer today......... But the answer "no" could be so simple if it wasn't a lie. Why he is being so coy is incomprehensible. After all, the pro-European Greens set an example every day: you can lie like hell, only denial is frowned upon.
Best regards
Roland Aßmann
Sorry, to all Karl Schwab, but everyone will surely have concluded from the context that this is of course about this Klaus Schwab, who is threatening the freedom and prosperity of our generation and even more so of future generations with his twisted ideas: https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=84763
Simply and poignantly to the point. As Thomas Bernhard said: Instead of hitting it, you just have to wait long enough. At some point, you would see one or two ministers sitting on a park bench talking to sparrows after a stroke, leaning on a stick. With drool dripping from the corner of his mouth. A very nice idea. Unfortunately, it will stay that way. Because I was born earlier, I won't get to see most politicians.
And then, unfortunately, you won't meet them either, because a place in hell has already been reserved for them.
I think many people are wondering why we are obviously dealing with politicians right now who seem to have lost all humanity and compassion and are unperturbed in their evil work.
I have an answer to that:
I believe that today's politicians are a mirror of our society and therefore cannot be role models of goodness. (With a few exceptions). If we lived in a society where faith, love, truth, honor and compassion were paramount, such politicians would not be able to stay in such positions of power for even one day.
Probably true.
It should be clear that our political actors are in the pay of others. It is no longer about Germany or even the German people. It's about fulfilling the financial promises to everyone but the taxpayers that have gone completely off track. Every evening we lift a warmonger named Strack-Zimmermann into the media saddle so that she can be allowed to compete with J. Göbbels or allow a health ecologist named Lauterbach to blather on about diseases he knows nothing about. The press covers up one lie with the next. Unvaccinated people are now out or even vaccinated into gas. If the people don't understand what's going on here soon, Germany will abolish itself (we're already heading in this direction at full throttle). It will soon be necessary for us all to apologize to Sarrazin.
IT SUCKS
How wise, but hedonism can be found on many paths! Who today still has the decency to greet someone who walks past them? But the esteem and respect are gone and why? Because that's exactly how it is in our Bundestag! We no longer have politicians we can look up to and who stand up for the common PEOPLE and live a patriotism that makes a country stand up and leads it into a promising future. This comic alliance of the traffic lights is really just damp powder and not worth a penny except to be stuffed into the back pipe to dry out and then ignite and blow out far away.