Don’t let’s be beastly to the Germans

It seems only yesterday that Margaret Thatcher was ranting away before an invited group of academics, journalists and experts at Chequers about the perils of German unification and the imminent subordination of all Europe to a nation of 80 million beasts, barbarians and bullies. The idea seemed distinctly odd even at the time, but not as odd as it seems now, after the passage of a decade and a half. Few of those present would have predicted that German unification would mark the beginning of a long period of relative economic decline, in which sclerotic institutions devised to achieve social cohesion and labour security after the second world war would undermine German competitiveness and push up its unemployment to levels not seen for half a century. Today, the feature of contemporary Germany which seems most striking from a distance is its political insularity and its stifling and oppressive social conformity.