Germany’s president is Frank-Walter Steinmeier. The president of Germany is a largely ceremonial position, with the chancellor serving as the chief executive. In the U.S., our president serves as both. In Germany, these duties are spread over the two positions. At the 80th anniversary of the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, when the U.S. president made a serious faux pas by “congratulating” Poland and stating it was “a great country,” Steinmeier asserted at a ceremony:
I Affirm our Lasting Responsibility
— Frank-Walter Steinmeier
Germany did a lot of damage in the world during the last century and it still as an inferiority complex as a result to this day. Contrary to what the U.S. president currently often does when world affairs do not go right, namely blaming his predecessors, blaming his staffers and appointees, or blaming other nations and their leaders, the president of Germany took responsibility for the brutal and unprovoked attack on Poland on September 1, 1939 that started World War II.
Steinmeier and I have a few things in common. His mother was born in Breslau, which is in now a part of Poland and called Wrocław. She was a refugee after the war. My father was also born in Breslau, and he was a refugee. Steinmeier was born in 1956. I was born in 1956. When I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, World War II was ancient history to me. I only know the Germany of the economic miracle of the 1960s. Due to his age, the same would be true for Steinmeier. I am certainly not personally responsible for the atrocities committed by the people of Germany in World War II, even though my grandfather was a German soldier of low rank serving in the Wehrmacht during the war, and several of my uncles from the maternal side were reportedly members of the SS, even though I never had a chance to actually talk about this with them. It was not talked about then.
There are very few Germans alive today that were alive during World War II. Those who are still with us were children then. Nobody of any position of responsibility or authority is still alive. Nobody who has personally committed atrocities is still alive. And yet, the German president affirms the country’s lasting responsibility for damaging the Polish nation, resulting in the deaths of about six million Polish citizens, about a fifth of the country’s pre-war population, both by the occupation by Germany and then the Russians when they attacked from the eastern front. Six million Polish civilians were killed by war crimes, crimes against humanity and by starvation.
The U.S. president congratulates Poland for this.
The German president affirms his country’s lasting responsibility, even though he himself was born 17 years after the event.
Nations carry responsibility for their actions. The United States is currently responsible for millions of civilian deaths due to wars it started in Afghanistan and Iraq, which triggered conflicts all over the Middle East. That responsibility will remain with our nation. I wonder, in the year 2099, when a U.S. president, who is today not even alive yet, gives a memorial speech for the victims of these wars, whether he will exhibit the same sense of responsibility and grace for those victims?
Countries are bigger than people. They can do more good, and they can do more damage. Where does our country rate today? Will we be proud of our actions today come 2099?
Here in the Netherlands we are currently facing a debate of our country’s role during the 1600s (the so-called Golden Age), including the negative parts like slavery and the various wars in South-East Asia.
Oh, yes, the Netherlands have a dark history of their own in the colonial years, especially in Asia and related to slave traffic. It’s a bit further in the past, but it’s there!
The “United States” (thanks to its civil war) is not united anymore. As for 2099, I frankly don’t see an America or a Poland or any recognizable, separate countries: it will be an outdated concept or ability — OR it will be because of nationalism the world was made toast through nuclear war, or avoiding that somehow, ecological breakdown.
I am reading Harari’s (Homo Sapiens) 21 Lessons for the 21st Century and despair that any of his lessons will be heard, or cared about by most people or governments — (and certainly not corporations who buy politicians they need) — who could (possibly) challenge Harari’s chilling forecasts.
That we freely give up our personal data (and location) through social media/cell phones is just one example of humans’ need for “freedom”
(to die being entertained…). Privacy by 2099 (if not much sooner) will be another quaint notion, like shame.
The 1% who currently own 1/2 of the world’s riches are systematically ridding the planet of its extraneous population by keeping them unhealthy, poor, ignorant, unequal). They know planet earth cannot support all the humans that would be on earth by 2099. It is already a “rat sink” (e.g., mass shootings, rampant incivility) and long before 2099. climate change will “flood” high ground, water-abundant countries with “huddled masses”.
Liberalism works through minor generosity to those less fortunate: when your third bedroom must be given to a dozen refugees…
Humans by 2099 could be without any political or economic clout — or worse, irrelevant — if AI’s algorithms and biotech advances have anything to do with it.
The political WILL to actively avoid these lessons will be paramount — only winning and keeping wealth/power will matter. Long-range planning, diplomacy and statesmanship governing is even now considered “weak”, esp. by dictatorship-wannabe “leaders” and their scary enablers…
As for taking personal (or a country’s responsibility), 63,000,000 Americans in the millions’ response was… elect a personality-defective, immature person of pure Id and obsessed with revenge (on their behalf), who is, for them, perfect. In Harari’s language: Homo Deus.
This comes off waaaay too dark… there is much to applaud many humans for today, and we must don the too-large coat of hope, as Maggie Smith said this week, and wear it daily — we will grow into it — and we must continue to bear witness, pay attention. Apathy and cynicism is what will bring us down.