EAST-WEST DIVIDE
NEW ANTHEM? Germany’s fraught history means national symbols are often fodder for heated debate.
And so it was again this week when a small furor erupted after a prominent leftist politician, Bodo Ramelow, suggested the country might benefit from voting on a different national anthem. Many people he knows in the former East Germany, where his constituency is located, don’t relate to the current anthem, Das Lied der Deutschen, Ramelow said in an interview in German newspaper Rheinische Post.
Disaffection: “I know many eastern Germans who do not sing along,” Ramelow said. A vote on a new anthem, he suggested, could bridge the ever-deepening political fissure emerging between the former East Germany, where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is ascendant, and the rest of the country. Ramelow said an anthem with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht could be one option.
Pick an anthem: Around the office, our editorial staff had some other suggestions, like this or this, but we digress.
Tempest in a teapot: As the Germans like to say, a small Shitstorm ensued. Ramelow’s proposal was roundly criticized, particularly by the right. Conservative Carsten Linnemann, the general secretary of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union, accused Ramelow of needlessly fomenting a culture war.
Love it or leave it? “Our flag and our anthem stand for our democracy, our fundamental rights, and our constitutional state,” said Linnemann. “Anyone who is uncomfortable with this has a problem with the free and democratic basic order of our country.”
History lesson: As is often the case, the debate touched a raw nerve rooted in Germany’s dark past. The lyrics to Germany’s national anthem consist in part of a poem penned by nationalist poet August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben in 1841, sung to the tune by Austrian composer Joseph Haydn. The anthem was first widely used during the Weimar Republic, including the original first verse, which begins “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, über alles in der Welt,” or “Germany, Germany above all, above all in the world.”
That line didn’t age well because, when the Nazis came to power, they partially retained the anthem, using that first verse as a rally cry for world domination. After World War II, West Germany retained Das Lied der Deutschen, but skipped the first verse. East Germany went with a tune called Auferstanden aus Ruinen, or “Risen from Ruins.”
The present: This gets us back to Ramelow’s core point. Upon German reunification, proposals for a new anthem were passed over, and the old East German anthem was supplanted by the West German one, exacerbating a feeling among many in the East that they were being overtaken rather than integrated into a unified Germany. Ramelow’s argument is that there ought to have been a democratic choice, and there could still be one today that would allow disaffected eastern Germans to feel more vested in the current republic.
East interpreter: Ramelow is a lawmaker for Germany’s Die Linke, or The Left party, who now serves as the vice president of Germany’s Bundestag. Although he originally comes from West Germany, he has become something of an interpreter of the eastern Germans, or Ossis, to the rest of the country.
Waving the flag: Ramelow told us he enthusiastically sings the current national anthem and is true to the flag, but some in his part of the country fly the “wrong flags” — those associated with extreme-right movements — or fly the current German flag upside down. A vote on national symbols like the anthem, he said, could help draw people into the democratic process and stop the rise of the far right.
Matter of courage? “I say quite clearly that our established politicians lack courage,” he said. “They let everything run its course and hope that things won’t get worse, and then they are surprised when the far right gains more and more ground with every election.”
Good intentions: The problem for Ramelow is that, in the very unlikely case there is a vote on an anthem, the far right would not go for his Bertolt Brecht suggestion. In fact, in response to Ramelow’s suggestion, one AfD politician suggested Germany bring back the “Germany above all” verse.
The whole episode, while mostly a tempest in a teapot, serves as a reminder that the former East Germany continues to chart an increasingly radical course. In a poll released this week in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, where a regional election will be held next year, the AfD came out far ahead with 39 percent. A debate on national symbols is unlikely to stop the party’s rise.
SECURITY GUARANTEES, FOR TRUMP?
GETTING TRUMP BACK ON BOARD: The main aim of Thursday’s coalition of the willing meeting — during which Kyiv’s allies agreed on the conditions for how they would protect Ukraine in the event the war ends —was essentially to get Trump back on board.
The offer: Twenty-six of Ukraine’s allies pledged operational and financial support in the event of a peace deal, including international troops on land, sea and air, French President Emmanuel Macron said in a press conference Thursday. That vow prompted an immediate response from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who threatened that any deployment of Western troops in Ukraine would provoke a military response from Russia.
Expressing hope: After their initial call on Thursday, the leaders of the so-called “coalition of the willing” — consisting of most European countries, the U.K., Canada and Japan, among others — convened a virtual chat with Trump, during which ´”they expressed their hope that the United States would continue to contribute substantially to the joint efforts to support Ukraine, formulate security guarantees, and shape an effective diplomatic process,” according to a statement from the German government.
‘Still pending’: A German official later put things somewhat less diplomatically (for Berlin standards, at least): “The aim was to make clear to the U.S. that Europe has fulfilled its part of the agreement and that we are now waiting for a response.” Among the things Europe expects from the U.S., the official added, are intensified diplomatic efforts to secure a peace deal, U.S. security guarantees to back up European peacekeeping troops and to consider sanctioning Russia. “The President’s responses to this are still pending,” the official said when asked about Trump’s reaction.
IN OTHER NEWS
EYES ON THE ECONOMY: Merz’s government has tasked itself with stimulating the country’s sluggish economy. To do so, the coalition unleashed hundreds of billions of euros in new borrowing for defense and infrastructure spending. But for now, forecasts for the EU’s biggest economy are still taking a downward turn. Two of the country’s leading think-tanks on Thursday cut their estimates for gross domestic product this year — to 0.2 and 0.1 percent, respectively — amid a big downward revision to official second-quarter data and fears that the trade deal agreed between the EU and U.S. won’t hold. Merz had actually hoped to turn the page by summer (and is now pledging an “autumn of reforms”), but latest strains in Merz’s coalition government may have sown doubts about whether the political leadership can deliver the kind of reforms needed to restore Germany’s economic dynamism, our colleague Johanna Treeck writes in this piece.
MERCOSUR TRADE DEAL AT FINISHING LINE: The European Commission took a major step on Wednesday toward closing its big trade deal with the Mercosur bloc, something Germany has long longed for amid the slump in its export-oriented economy and Trump’s trade war with Europe. The Mercosur deal has languished for 25 years, facing staunch opposition from powerful European farmers backed by France, Poland, and Italy, who feared that a glut of cheap agricultural produce would undercut local producers. The approval of France — the agreement’s staunchest opponent — was eventually secured via a proposal to protect farmers if local produce markets are destabilized by a flood of beef or poultry imports from Latin America. The Commission expects to sign the agreement in early 2026, after capitals and the European Parliament give their blessing. Full story here.
THE WEEK AHEAD
AMBASSADOR MEETING: Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul and Merz will hold opening talks at this year’s conference of the heads of German Missions at the foreign office in Berlin on Monday.
CAR SUMMIT: Merz will be in Munich at the IAA auto show on Tuesday, where he is scheduled to give a speech and take part in a panel, after convening with the board of the German Association of the Automotive Industry in the morning.
COSTA IN BERLIN: European Council President António Costa is set to have dinner with Merz in the chancellery on Wednesday to prepare for the informal summit of EU leaders in Copenhagen next month and the following EU summit at the end of October in Brussels.
O, SORRY, CANADA: We apologize for misspelling the Canadian capital, Ottawa, in last week’s Bulletin and appreciate our proud Canadian readership for getting in touch to point out the error.
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