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Article: Ambivalence all round. (a survey of West Germany)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- October 28, 1989
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1989 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Ambivalence all round
GERMANY'S relatively brief spell as a united nation-state was rarely happy either for itself or others. It began in 1871 thanks to Bismarck, Prussia's "iron chancellor"; it ended, two world wars and a failed experiment with democracy later (the Weimar Republic), with the collapse of Hitler's "thousand-year Reich" in 1945. For centuries before Bismarck, Germany's division into mostly impotent little states was seen by other Europeans as a necessary ingredient in the continental balance of power. For much of the time since 1945, the existence of two German states has been widely regarded in the same way. The western allies, America, Britain ...