The Violent German Left Comes of Age

"Not to be a socialist at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head." - attributed to Georges Clemenceau. [1]

>Sometimes it appears that the Left and Progressives have erected such a high-walled idealized dream world that they are surprised and shocked when the real world unexpectedly intrudes. Minds protected by an ideological fortress rarely glimpse the real world. That is why the Left was surprised to find out from Khrushchev in 1956 that Stalin was at least as vicious a tyrant as any of the former czars of Russia. That is why they were surprised to learn that people would risk their lives at sea fleeing Vietnamese or Cuban Communism. That is why they were surprised when the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Afghanistan in 1979. Certainly, that is why they were surprised when the Berlin Wall fell.

This gradual remedial education of the Left and introduction of the Left to the notion that Western capitalism or capitalism under the supervision of democratic institutions is not so bad is theme in the article "The Passion of Joschka Fischer" by Paul Berman. The New Republic piece uses the political life of Fischer, the German foreign minister, as a metaphor for two-decade long transition of the Left.

Berman is a self-identified Progressive and his treatment of Fischer is somewhat laudatory and apologetic. If you did not know Berman was a Progressive, one could tell as much by his language. No American Conservative would describe police as what "we Americans used to call 'the pigs.'" Nonetheless, Berman does manage to convey accurately the trauma and anxiety of the Left in confronting a Post-Cold War world.

In 1973, Fischer was barely more than a political street thug and now, as foreign minister, he is the highest-ranking government official who is also a Green Party member. In January 2001, Stern magazine published old photographs showing Joschka Fischer apparently assaulting a police officer. The publication caused a sensation in Germany and triggered Berman to consider the metamorphosis of the violent Left to the more responsible European political mainstream.

It seems long ago now, but the early 1970s was the era of kidnappings and murders by the Baader and Meinhof Red Army Fraction. The Cold War was not so cold and the European Left believed the real threat to peace and freedom was the United States. They believed that the United States was the political heir of the Nazis. The threat was Fascism, and to the German Left, fighting America and capitalism was fighting Fascism.

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