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A letter from a school teacher who lives and works in Saxony-Anhalt: “West Germany invaded the east of the country without appreciating what was already there and worked well. As a result, we were considered second-class Germans. The broad support the AfD has garnered in the region is a symptom of a genuine desire for peace and diplomatic conflict resolution”
I am writing from East Germany, more specifically from the state of Saxony-Anhalt, where I have lived for twenty-three years. My impression is that this region, which was once part of the German Democratic Republic, is often perceived in Italy and in West Germany alike primarily as a political problem or even as a place where Nazi tendencies are re-emerging.
In my first years here, I partly took the same stance that journalist Wiebke Hollersen attributes to future Chancellor Friedrich Merz: as a visitor, I explained to the locals how they lived and how they thought. In 2023, Dirk Oschmann, a professor of German literature and an expert on the works of Kafka, made a significant contribution to the debate about the relationship between East and West with his book, The East: A West German Invention, which has gained wide popularity. In his essay, the author condemns the policy of West Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when it effectively “invaded” the east of the country, imposing its rules in education, law, and industry without appreciating what was already there and worked well. This letter is motivated by a desire to be a partner, not an ideological mentor to those around me. Oschmann helped me greatly in this realization process. However, even before getting acquainted with his text, I was seriously challenged by Pope Francis’s critique against any form of “proselytizing.”
No doubt the election results, in part, suggest that there has been a political shift to the right. But a closer look at the results of the February 23 vote reveals that local voters did not simply favor the Alternative for Germany (AfD), but rather voted for various anti-system parties. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that with 37% of the vote in our region, the AfD has become a significant political reality that cannot be ignored.
In his book “The East: A West German Invention,” Dirk Oschmann criticizes the attitude of West Germany, which “invaded” the East of the country and imposed its own rules in higher education, law, and industry, without appreciating what was already there and worked well
To this end, many are wondering how this will affect Friedrich Merz’s chances of becoming Germany’s next chancellor. Last weekend, the Berliner Zeitung newspaper expressed the essence of this issue in an eloquent headline: “Stopp, Herr Merz” – “Stop, Mr. Merz.” In her article, one of the editors of the publication, Wiebke Hollersen, points out that Merz has a very complicated relationship with East Germany, which, in return, has a very complicated relationship with Merz. A Catholic conservative and neoconservative, a former member of BlackRock’s board of directors, Merz appears to be a figure extremely far removed from the worldview of most East Germans. For them, for example, the right to abortion is an unquestionable acquisition, unreviewable.
To a certain extent, I could also call myself a conservative Catholic. However, what I am certainly not is a neoconservative: I have never believed that war can be the solution to all problems. At the same time, while I don’t view abortion rights as a “self-evident” truth – and not so much for Church reasons as for philosophical ones – I understand why many people view abortion that way. The key distinction between someone and something, as written by the eminent German philosopher Robert Spaemann (1927-2018) in his book People (Stuttgart, 1996), seems to me to be a fundamental fulcrum in discussions about this issue.
However, with twenty-three years of experience in this region, I think I understand the anxiety of those around me and would like to try to explain it. First of all, attention should be drawn to one indisputable fact: according to the results of the last elections in the country, the parties Alternative for Germany (AfD), Sahra Wagenknecht’s Union (BSW), and the Left together represent an absolute majority. And this in turn shows that the absolute majority of citizens are strongly opposed to the continuation of the war in Ukraine.
But it seems that the first steps of the likely future chancellor are leading in the opposite direction – toward what Ernst Jünger would call “total military mobilization.” For many of my fellow citizens, who have overcome years of hardship and finally found economic stability thanks to the minimum wage introduced by the Socialists (SPD), this prospect is deeply troubling. The modest economic benefits they had just begun to enjoy have been swiftly eroded by enormous public expenditures (now also for rearmament) and by general inflation, which is being felt here more acutely than in the West of the Federal Republic of Germany.
It is worth recalling that Germany already ranks fourth in the world in terms of military spending, amounting to 86 billion dollars. Only Russia (146 billion), China (235 billion), and the USA (968 billion, according to Berliner Zeitung) are ahead of Germany in defense investments.
In Ukraine, the only way out of the situation remains a diplomatic solution to the issue – not only from the standpoint of political realism, but also for ideological reasons
In recent years, I have closely followed all of Pope Francis’s pronouncements on war, revisiting again and again his fundamental teaching: war is never a solution to a problem. And I never once doubted his words about “suffering, exhausted Ukraine” – on the contrary, I tried to contribute and help in some concrete way. For example, I taught German to a young refugee from Ukraine for a year free of charge.
The main argument for the initiative of rearming individual states – clearly different from the idea of a pan-European defense – is the duty to protect weak countries from injustice. However, as American professor Jeffrey Sachs has repeatedly pointed out in various contexts, the reality turns out to be far more complex. In this protracted, multi-year conflict, the responsibility of all parties must be considered. Pope Francis also warns against simplifying the perception of war through the prism of a primitive dichotomy reminiscent of the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood.
In addition, I believe that the image of the polyhedron that Pope Francis spoke of in his speech to the European Parliament cannot be reduced to Alexander Dugin’s theory of the plurality of empires. The concept of the polyhedron implies the principle of respect, as well as the empire’s service to the nations around it. At the same time, Jürgen Habermas’s formula, according to which Ukraine “should not win the war, but should not lose it either,” seems to me unsatisfactory. The only acceptable way out of the situation, in my opinion, remains a diplomatic solution to the issue – not only from the standpoint of political realism, but also for ideological reasons.
In this context, I find extremely useful the distinction proposed by the Italian teacher Giovanni Maddalena in his reflections on the philosophy of law. In the famous dialog between the Athenians and the inhabitants of the island of Melos, Thucydides constructs a hyperrealistic interpretation according to which law is determined by force. The idealist alternative, on the other hand, argues that the course of history is guided by ideas, primarily the idea of justice. The first point of view – cynical and realistic – is often attributed to Donald Trump. However, such a reading seems, to me at least, questionable. Certainly, as the leader of a vast empire, it would seem that Trump should be guided by the principle of strength. However, Trump’s proposed makeup of his own team in government largely contradicts this interpretation. Just think of figures like J.D. Vance, Tulsi Gabbard, Robert Kennedy Jr., and Jay Bhattacharya.
The articles by journalist Thomas Fasbender published in the pages of the Berliner Zeitung show a much deeper understanding of Donald Trump’s role in the current geopolitical context than the texts of the best columnist of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Jasper von Altenbockum. Certainly, the apparent sympathy that Alternative for Germany has for the Trump administration is no accident. For the AfD, Trump embodies a real possible alternative to the existing European and world order. From this standpoint, it can be said that the German citizens living in my region have understood the significance of Pope Francis’s “prophecy of peace” better than anyone else. To be sure, there are significant differences between the AfD, the Donald Trump administration, and the Pope, especially on the issue of migration. However, Francis himself has repeatedly emphasized during his air travels that migration and integration are two sides of the same coin. Perhaps dialog between these seemingly opposite poles is not so impossible.
