Sixty years after the devastation of 1945, the Germans are cheering for Germany again. And it is appropriate that they are doing it in the context of the World Cup, that harmless sublimation of national conflict and contest.
The Germans committed, under the malevolent leadership of Adolf Hitler, one of the great crimes in history, the attempt to eliminate the Jews from Europe by putting 6 million of them to death. But they have stepped up to the plate and endured their full share of shame and humiliation for that monstrous crime.
Meanwhile the heirs of the Lenin dynasty still rule in Moscow. That was the regime, remember, that starved about 10 million Ukrainians to death in the early 1930s.
And the heirs of the Mao dynasty still rule in Beijing. That was the regime, remember, that starved about 30 million Chinese people to death in the Great Leap Forward.
So it is time for the Germans to revive their patriotic spirit and celebrate their Germanness. For even if we regard Hegel’s promotion of Germany to the center and the culmination of the world in his Philosophy of History as rather over the top, the Germans still have much to be proud of.
- Germans started the Reformation.
- A German reinvented philosophy.
- Germans invented modern psychology.
- Germans dominated music in its golden age.
- Germans reinvented physics, both macro and micro.
- Germans invented the modern army.
So let us welcome the Germans back into full membership in the family of nations, and encourage them to return to the great tradition of dichter und denker, poets and philosophers, in which they gave so much to the world.
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