Bogumil,
I sincerely wish you a merry Christmas and an early happy New Year. I hope things are going well for you at the moment. Since I am not sure if you will be doing a Christmas-themed post this year, I thought I should post it here just in case.
Remember that International Relations research paper I confided to you about German-Soviet rapprochement, arguing that Hermann Göring played a pivotal role in promoting a détente during the 1930s? After being impressed by the amount of research I had gathered throughout November, the professor who graded it suggested I should revisit the topic later in a graduate thesis. He believed that the topic is not well-known or well-understood among historians, its implications distorted by what happened during the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and Operation Barbarossa.
In the context of that research paper, I stated that German-Soviet relations prior to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and Operation Barbarossa offer instructive lessons for how Socialistic Pariah States should conduct themselves in a world order defined by Neoliberalism. Any pursuit of ideological goals is unachievable without ensuring long-term national survival. To demonstrate a post-1945 example that parallels German-Soviet relations, I cited the relations between the PRC and DPRK, particularly how the latter’s relations with the former was tolerated so long as it further the aims of its Juche ideology. The PRC is inclined toward a reunited Korea on the DPRK’s terms, preferring the DPRK to either be pro-Chinese or at the very least neutral. Beijing has found it difficult to anticipate what Pyongyang would do next after reuniting Korea, so preserving the status quo on the Korean Peninsula has shown to be more predictable than the DPRK reuniting Korea.
This sort of sentiment did occur whenever the NSDAP tried to reunite the German-speaking world vis-à-vis the German Reich prior to 1939. From Austria to Sudetenland and Danzig, the German Reich could not have achieved reunification without winning the rapport of the Italian Fascists (in the case of Austria) and the Soviets (in the case of Danzig). Neither Mussolini nor Stalin would condone such actions if doing so will put Fascist Italy or the Soviet Union in danger.
The chief concern lies in the implications that come with the German-speaking world becoming united under a single German nation. Such an endeavor is tantamount to the establishment of a Pan-Germanic great power. If the German-speaking world was unified, will we envisage a “European Germany” or a “German Europe?”
A “European Germany” is not in the interests of Pan-Germanic Socialism. That idea was already being espoused by people advocating for a “United States of Europe” around the same time as Der nationale Sozialismus was being written. What the world has seen after 1945 is the rise of a “European Germany” embodied as pro-EU/NATO West Germany, which recently annexed East Germany. Any conception of Pan-Germanic Socialism in this day and age will adopt Hard Euroscepticism in opposition to “Pan-Europeanism.”
A “German Europe,” while the most logical, is also the most ambiguous. Its meaning ranges from Europe being ruled by a hegemonic German-speaking world under Pan-Germanic Socialism to some demarcation between the German-speaking world and the rest of Europe. It is akin to that same ambiguity that comes after the DPRK reuniting the Korean Peninsula.
Signed,
-DAH
Categories: Philosophy
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