Andreas Umland about Russia, Weimar and Bonn

In the Kiev newspaper "Zerkalo Nedeli" on May 25, an article by German researcher Andreas Umland "Between the Weimar and Bonn scenarios" was published, in which the author, using the example of the Weimar Republic and post-war Germany, tries to raise the problem of correlating the benefits and harms of the consequences for the state of ultrapatriotism and / or " partial loss of sovereignty", even if real.

According to A. Umland, "in recent years, part of the Russian elite has adopted a paranoid vision of the external, primarily the Western world, which in the 1990s was only the ideology of the extreme right marginals and paleocommunists" . Ultranationalism, fanatical anti-Americanism, and the post-Soviet equivalent of the Dolchstosslegende (the legend of the stabbing in the back), which were also characteristic of Weimar, have become extremely important intellectual and political currents in modern Russia. The consequences of the collapse of the Soviet empire (territorial losses, loss of great power status, social instability) are presented by Russian political and intellectual elites as the consequences of a secret conspiracy inspired by the West.

Speaking about these similarities, A. Umland refers to Alexander Yanov's book "After Yeltsin: "Weimar" Russia" published back in 1995, where several scenarios for Russia were outlined. And he notes that if Yanov's "Weimar" comparisons have been popular for many years, then practically no attention is paid to the other "Bonn/Berlin" scenario given in the book, although it is modern Germany that is designated in Russia as one of the most desirable partners for cooperation.

However, as A. Umland states, the desire for contacts with Germany, which achieved success precisely after overcoming the fascist dictatorship, does not mean at all that the Russian elite sees this success as an example for imitation or for analysis, although "the development of the Bonn Republic after 1945 could could serve as a model for Russia's post-Cold War development. Just as Germany's post-World War I development was, in a certain sense, meant to be a warning to post-Soviet leaders, its resurgence after World War II could be an instructive example for the Russian elite today. "

The most important lesson that the Bonn and Berlin republics can teach today's Russia concerns not so much the country's internal affairs as its relations with the outside world, the vision of Western civilization and, above all, ties with the United States of America. "Yes, the post-war policy of West Germany was not independent, and the main vectors of its development were determined by the occupation by American troops, demilitarization, and other consequences of defeat in the war. However, in the end, all this determined the democratic nature of the development of the post-war German state. While the interwar period, the period of pride of the German elites for " that their homeland is not part of the West, does not need a liberal democracy, and, instead, follows the civilizational "Sonderweg" - a special path" ended with the fact that Adolf Hitler turned out to be the most consistent and popular preacher of this idea. "Paradoxically, it was the ultrapatriot who the anti-liberal and pseudo-democrat Hitler, and not the German Westernizers, left the Germans (except for the destroyed and divided country) a deeply ambiguous attitude towards their own national identity. But it should have been the other way around: not only according to the logic of Nazi ideology, but also in the opinion of many, if not most of the German political, cultural and social leaders of the Weimar Republic, the conquest of Germany by the West as a result of World War II should have led to the loss of German national self-determination and German ethnic specificity. The events of 1945 must have had far worse consequences than what happened to Germany after the defeat of 1918. The possibility of independent development of the country was not only limited to the West, as it was after the First World War; it was completely lost after the unconditional surrender of the Third Reich on May 8, 1945. This - according to the rhetoric of most German politicians, professors and writers of the Weimar Republic - was to be the beginning of the end of the Germans as an independent nation. .

The author draws attention to the paradox of history: Germany, having raised the ideology of rabid anti-Westernism and voluntary isolationism, eventually came not only to a totalitarian regime, but also to "the dilemma of the eternal responsibility of the German people for the horrors of World War II, concentration camps and the Holocaust" . And Germany, defeated, occupied, partially losing sovereignty, did not ultimately lose either domestic or cultural traditions, and became a country in which the Germans acquire "a new sense of self-respect, as one of the most economically successful and culturally influential nations of the post-war era" .

“The history of post-war Germany thus carries an important message for Russia: be careful about what is ultimately truly patriotic and who, in fact, is a true patriot! It goes without saying that neither the West as a whole, neither the United States in particular is perfect. Their policies and methods should not be blindly copied; in many cases - especially in recent years - their actions should be harshly criticized. On the other hand, the experience of the Bonn period of German history shows that even full integration into Western structures and the occupation by the American army of a formerly fanatically anti-Western state does not lead to the disintegration of that country's national culture, but may instead provide the conditions for a spectacular national renaissance .

Russia, unlike Germany in 1945, is not under the threat of American occupation. "However, its position in the international arena is becoming more and more dangerous every year due to the progressive spread in Russian society of eccentric conspiracy theories, irrational anti-Americanism and fantastic interpretations of world politics - largely following the patterns of German political thought, journalism and journalism of 1918-1933 ... It will be a sad joke of history if today's relatively close relations between Russia and Germany become a victim of repeating the mistakes of the German elite of the 1920-1930s by the political and intellectual leaders of today's Russia," A. Umland concludes his article .

Sources

• Umland Andreas. Between the Weimar and Bonn scenarios // Mirror of the Week (Kyiv). 2007. May 25.