WHAT'S THE GERMAN FOR KNEEPADS?:

Getting Cozy with the Dragon (Claus Christian Malzahn, Spiegel)

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has never been one of those politicians who put the issue of human rights at the center of their political ethics. Back in the 1980s, when the former opposition leader of the state of Lower Saxony peered over the East German border, he didn't perceive it as being a regime that used guns, spies and barbed wire to deprive its subjects of the kind of political freedom that was taken for granted by people in the West. For many in the left-wing of the Social Democrats at the time, East Germany was considered an irreversible result of World War II, something you just had to accept.

But a look at Schroeder's historical comments and letters suggests he straddled the fence between just accepting and embarrassingly buttering up the communists. Just look at the way he addressed the German Democratic Republic's communist leaders: In 1985, Schroeder described Honecker, the then East German dictator, as a "deeply honest man." Then, one year later, Schroeder sent a letter to Honecker's deputy, informally writing: "Dear Egon Krenz: I will certainly need the endurance you have wished me in this busy election year. But you will certainly also need great strength and good health for your People's Chamber election." Of course, there were no democratic elections in East Germany.

In view of these sentiments, one can only imagine the kind of resoluteness and determination with which the chancellor reminds Beijing about human rights and democracy during his visits there today as Germany's leader.

Even as late as June 1989, as the GDR was coming unglued and the "honest" dictator and "Dear Egon" were losing their subjects, who were fleeing en masse over the Hungarian and Czechoslovakian borders, Schroeder still didn't get it. Just five days before the Wall fell, he offered this gem: "After 40 years of West Germany, we shouldn't lie to a new generation about the prospects for re-unification. There aren't any."

Once you've coddled one communist dictatorship they're all pretty much alike.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 3, 2005 9:40 PM