GERMAN REICH THE MODEL FOR
EUROPE SAYS GERMAN MINISTER
“Germany and Central Europe are historically
indissolubly linked together”
Report by the German Journalists
of www.german-foreign-policy.com,
Dated 29 August 2006.
Translated by Edward Spalton for www.freenations.freeuk.com 30/8/06
Introduction by Rodney Atkinson
As in all other moves towards the re-creation (under the disguise
of the European Union) of German Imperialism and European Fascism, the
warnings of democrats are laughed at but then later confirmed and still
later admitted. So it is now with the re-creation of the German Holy
Roman Empire, so beloved of the Nazis that some of them created the
Charlemagne Prize awarded to Blair, Jenkins, Heath and other destroyers
of democratic nationhood (see www.freenations.freeuk.com/2003-12-11.html)
Now we have a German Pope (Nazi youth and supporter of the Reich ideal
who recently declared Germans had no war guilt - see www.freenations.freeuk.com/news-2006-06-05.html)
who will be taking part in a celebration of the 50th anniversary of
the EU next year by praising that "Holy Roman Empire of the German
Nation". Now we see a German Minister admitting that Germany and
the Eastern European countries "belong together" and that
the Reich is the model for Europe.
The medieval, Europe-wide German Reich is a valid model for the
union of European countries today. So says the Berlin State Minister
for Culture, Bernd Neumann. According to him, the memory of the
Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation reveals “an inner historical
consistency” with the founding and steady expansion of the European
Union. These remarks are a preparation for the festivities in Berlin
for the fiftieth anniversary of the European Economic Community (EEC).,
to which the Federal Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has invited the German
Pope, Joseph Ratzinger. Ratzinger is a committed supporter of the “Imperial
Ideal” (Reichsidee) and is to speak on the “spiritual foundations”
of Europe in the German capital. This government offensive to revitalise
the Imperial Ideal will underline the German leadership of the EU and
confirm fears in France, Great Britain and almost all the states of
eastern Europe. Sections of the German elites are warning against an
all-too-public assertion of German hegemony.
GREAT SIGNIFICANCE
As the Berlin State Culture Minister Bernd Neumann said, the German
Reich of the Middle Ages can “from today’s viewpoint”
serve “as a valid model of the functioning order of a superstate”
(1). Neumann took this opportunity when he opened an exhibition last
Sunday (27 August) which is dedicated to this supposed historical exemplar
(“The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, 962 – 1806”).
Because of the prominence of the exhibition ( partly in the state-controlled
Historical Museum in Berlin), the individual stands and total content
of the exhibition are attracting remarkable public interest. The Culture
Minister’s intervention has strengthened the political charisma
of the exhibition. He is a committed supporter of the Federal Chancellor.
It touches on “every great trend (…) which makes very clear
to us the inner historical legitimacy and consistency of European unification”,
said Neumann on Sunday. The explicit aim of the organisers is “to
examine the past of Old Europe in a time of fundamental inner and external
reorientation” (2). According to the organisers, they have traced
“structures and developmental processes “ which are “of
great significance for the federal construction of Europe”
THE EUROPE OF TOMORROW
The public references to the structures of the medieval Reich which
are evident in Neumann’s position used to be the province of the
extreme right , or confined to clerical-conservative circles –
at any rate since the Second World War. This was the opinion of the
CSU (Christian Social Union) politician and grandson of the Austrian
Kaiser, Otto von Habsburg who made it known at the end of the Seventies
that “ the European integration of our times (…) follows the
grand outline and principles of the Reich, which survived 1806, because
they are of lasting validity”(3)
Similarly, the Pan-Europa Union , an association of EU supporters close
to the CSU insisted that “the eternal function of the Reich must
be renewed in the Europe of tomorrow in the interest of the West”
(4). Similarly, Joseph Ratzinger, the present Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged
that the origins of today’s EU should acknowledge “a common
imperial ideal (Reichsidee)” (5) In recent years, conservative
newspapers have opened their columns to new advocacy for the “Reich”.
(6)
THE PAPAL SPEECH
As the Speaker of the Bundestag Norbert Lammert (CDU) has now informed
us, he has invited a supporter of the imperial ideal, Joseph Ratzinger,
to Berlin next year. The invitation was extended to Ratzinger last Monday
by the Federal Chancellor at a reception in Castel Gandolfo. The German
Pope will be in Berlin to attend the festivities for the fiftieth anniversary
of the Treaty of Rome and will grace the proceedings with a speech.
The German press already reports that the religious consecration will
validate the European Economic Community (EEC) and will be dedicated
to “the spiritual foundations of Europe’s political unification”
(7). The invitation legitimates the “Reich” concept of
a stable co-operation of Church and State. It will be a particular affront
to France, a founder member of the EEC. Paris is committed to secularism
and the separation of Church and State has been a principle of French
public life since the revolution of 1789.
CENTRAL EUROPE
The Berlin Culture Minister’s speech of last Sunday will also affront
those European states lying to the east and south of Germany’s
borders. The Minister made an obvious allusion to Poland and the Czech
Republic when he said that the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation
was “a part of the past of many European states”. According
to Neumann “Germany and Central Europe are historically and culturally
indissolubly linked together” (8). By this the State Minister recalled
the earlier German hegemony to the east of Germany’s present frontiers,
which the Federal Republic has tried to reassert since 1990
FEARS
The reawakening of the Reich myth has run into sharp criticism. In a
press interview, the historian Heinrich August Winkler pointed to the
significance of the Reich myth for Nazi propaganda. According to Winkler
it was decisive “that the Reich was always something else and more
than a normal national state”. When, in 1939, Hitler proclaimed
the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia over the rump of Czechoslovakia,
legal historians of pan-German views confirmed that this act was quite
in line with the old Imperial ideal which had always been supranational.
Winkler warns of new tensions between European states. “Incantation
of the Reich” would “unavoidably create fears of German demands
if it became again the model for the ordering of Europe”(9). As
criticism of the well-know historian Winkler has been prominently publicised
for three weeks, (10) the Minister’s speech can be clearly understood
as an undoubtedly intentional rebuttal on behalf of German Reich propaganda.
The references ( ) to sources and supporting reports appear in German
on the website.
