Seven more days until the German election. The pressure is building on me to know what the !@#$% is going on here, in my adopted land. There’s just one week until the historic snap election (months in the making), the fourth in Germany’s post-WW2 history, and I’m still floundering with my political identity as newbie German.
I will get to vote in this election, and I don’t yet know for whom. Which party, which punchable face, will I put my little x next to on the ballot next Sunday? Or do they even do x’s, or are there bubbles to fill in, or check marks? The technical aspect will be revealed next Sunday when I go to my local polling place, having received a letter about how and where to vote, from my local government district office. But the actual politics is more complicated. Or more interesting, depending on your attitude.
The fact that Elon Musk cares so much about German politics is a worrisome sign that I should too. I should be an informed voter, and do my research into my political representation options. I want to prove my integration, after all—that I’ve earned the red passport of the Federal Republic.
Over the years, I’ve watched this and that YouTube video explaining the German political system. I have an undergrad degree in government, for cryin’ out loud, yet it has taken me years to understand the differences between the various German parties. They all sound the same, with words like Christian and Democrat thrown around. I need definitions and terms to be defined. I need to know what they stand for and what issues affect me.
My Australian chiropractor gives me the lowdown and says that from the American perspective, the CDU is like the Democrats and the rest are to the left. To the right, there’s the AfD and BSW, one free-market, the other socialist, but notably both pro-Russian.
My alternative-minded friends suggest new parties like Die Basis and WerteUnion, which promote more direct democracy but are conservative. My neighbors say that they are so far left, that the decision of whom to vote for is obvious. Everyone I talk to seems to agree the system is up a creek, and the paddles being offered are broken.
I read a lot of Substack writing about Germany, from journalists to far right-wing and populist bloggers. Just reading the mainstream news, or watching Jan Bohrmann gives me a sense of issues on the left and insofar as they demonize the right wing, I can orient their position. Germany is a land divided by media consumption, just like the US. Depending on who you read, the world is ending—it’s the causes that differ. That humans are terrible seems to be the only common denominator.
I turn to the Wahl-O-Mat to get a better idea of which party might be a match for me, and take the test. After clicking through twenty or so questions in German about my views on various issues, the result was absurd and shocking: the party for the perpetuation of eternal youth, officially called the Party for Rejuvenation Research. WTF? I even wrote about that party, dedicated to the abolition of age-related death, in an essay last year about the inanity of the topic. Other parties were also suggested as a match that I would never have chosen. Something is defective in the algorithm of this election-o-meter.
I went back and re-read the questions. Maybe I didn’t understand the German properly? Clearly, the questions are related to issues that I don’t fully grasp the context for. An example: am I in favor of allowing people to retire early and keep working? Why not, I think, initially? Everyone should be able to work or not, and not be prevented due to some label, retirement. Coming from the personal freedom-loving American perspective, this seems obvious. But no, things are more complicated than that in Germany. The entire social welfare state is a vast machine that relies on young people working and paying in, and others retiring and drawing pensions, and taxes are levied at every stage of life. Insurance is required for every event, action, and even thought in Germany. Changing any one part of this vast infrastructure would mess with the entire delicate house of cards that is modern Germany.
My friend tells me that the Wahl-O-Mat is not ideal and to try the Real-O-Mat instead. This app doesn’t compare each party’s platform of campaign promises, but how they’ve actually voted in reality. A key difference. I took their test and the result is much different. I’m back in the sacred “middle” of mainline German politics. The self-defined “democratic middle” refuses to cooperate with the right, despite the right representing the opinions of more and more Germans. And those are Germans who mostly live outside the major urban centers. Again, like in the US, the urban-rural divide is where the real differences lie and where a second civil war will start.1
I decided to get a refresher on German politics and history and head out on a Saturday to visit the Deutsches Historisches Museum, the German Historical Museum, in the heart of the city. On the way to the subway, I pass by an info booth promoting the SGP party, the Sozialistisches Gleichheitspartei, the Socialist Equality Party. They’re against capitalism, fascism, genocide, and war. Easier said than done, given the givens of our world, but a noble idea.
When I arrive at Unter den Linden Boulevard and head east towards the museum, I see heavy police presence. There is a demonstration happening, as there is every Saturday in Berlin. It’s freezing cold, and the few tourists braving the conditions are well-attired yet hustling by. I stop to watch the parade pass by. First, several police vans, then riot police on foot, passing along the sidewalk parallel to the parade. Then, the protesters pass by with banners with white doves on a blue background. There’s a rat-a-tatting of snare drums as a line of protesters pound out a martial rhythm on big white drums. I’m still not sure what they are protesting for or against.
I see more signs in German, some are pasted on the backs and torsos of protesters: “Peace now, no weapons.” Or another, “Don’t honor the veterans but the deserters.”
“Peace with Russia,” says a sign on a protester’s back. Now I know what is going on, my stomach turns, and my face begins to flush.
Some things are worth fighting for. Higher ideals such as freedom of self-determination, to decide who will be your leaders and not have it forced on you with a gun to your head. At least, that was what the Americans were up to back in 1776. No more monarchs, or dictators. America might have lost the thread lately, but not the Ukrainians. It’s existential. And the Germans protesting for “peace” I saw were all older, white Germans, or, to use the “Unwort des Jahres”, Biodeutschen.
These Germans grew up in a period of unprecedented economic growth and prosperity—funded by the US Marshall Plan. It’s a bit rich, as we’d say, for them to talk about peace. Sure, the Marshall Plan was partly aimed to create markets for consumer goods and bring Germany back into the fold of the new capitalist world order, but these Germans who want to make peace with Putin and stop sending weapons to Ukraine are examples of the effect of the shortness of historical memory; their slogans examples of the worst kind of newspeak. Peace with Russia is appeasement and capitulation.
It’s easy to tell other people what to do and to accept. Asking other people in another country to accept defeat and domination—so that one’s own country and personal life will not suffer, is the height of cowardice and hypocrisy. Claiming that peace is paramount when it means others must suffer, and doing so with the militant pounding of snare drums, is even more ironic.
Sure, nobody wants to lose what they have, especially if it is the comfortable social welfare state that Germany has been for the past 80 years, but those days are over anyway. Germany is in a new era, where simple answers and a complicated closed system can’t solve the challenges of the complex conflicts and global movement of peoples. I don’t know which party will be able to get us on the right path.
When I get to the German Historical Museum, it’s closed. I didn’t do my research to check the website beforehand, so on location I am informed that the permanent exhibit is closed while the building is being renovated, but meanwhile, two special exhibits are open. One about the Enlightenment, the other about alternative history—what would have happened if nukes had been used on Germany or if the July 20 group had succeeded in assassinating Hitler in 1944?
Wandering through the special exhibits, I can’t stop thinking about the protesters with that line, “Don’t honor the veterans.” I enlisted in the US Army for what amounted to an illegal war, and I was crushed by the experience. I often wondered, what if everyone refused to participate? What if everyone became a conscientious objector? I wanted to be part of my generation’s war and carry the burden. Yes, I was naive, but I was willing to die for something greater than myself and lay down my life for my fellow man—even though it was an illusion and a scam in the particulars. I wish there were no wars, too. I wish human rights were respected. But how to get there is not always clear until after the fact. Maybe even until decades later.
Pacifism works on a personal and moral level, but if states become pacifist, they won’t exist for long. That much I do remember from my undergrad political philosophy classes.
The gap between reality and our ideals is most obvious during an election season.
You might also enjoy some of my other essays and posts about Berlin, Germany and American identity:
America: A Love Story
Some people still feel the need to send me news items about what is happening in my home country. I don’t read the news much for the very reasons that people feel compelled to keep me updated. What is happening in the US is so disturbing that it must be shared. Like any dark secret, the burden compels disclosure.
Welcome in Berlin
Welcome in Berlin is how Germans say in English welcome to… whatever city; you hear it enough, and it starts to sound grammatical.
I know I am being glib and barely going into the true depth and seriousness of German politics. This is a blog, with some humorous and self-deprecating quick hot takes on my life here. If you want to get more real journalistic information, here is a good article shared with me by a friend on The Telegraph.