Pride versus prejudice
Some thoughts on the attitude towards the military in Britain and Germany
The picture stood in a slim silver frame: My grandfather, the one I had loved most, in uniform, next to his horse, a beautiful sorrel called Roland. Thinking back, that one picture was it as far as uniforms and the army was concerned. Years later, during my last year at school, my classmates had to decide whether to suffer through eighteen months of national service or to go through – as we thought – the deeply upsetting, ruthless and often humiliating interrogations to be accepted as conscientious objectors. No one even mentioned the possibility of joining the army and getting paid for doing a degree course, when the rest of us would finance our way through university with whatever jobs we could get.
Growing up in northern Germany the army was always – the British Army: the insight into that strange world of tours to Northern Ireland, the NAAFI and life in barracks that one got in-between the great music they played on BFBS. The traffic jams during the time of the autumn manoeuvres, when long columns of British tanks occasionally moved along the motorway. Or on a countryside walk the sudden encounter with a young soldier, face blackened, sitting next to some camouflaged vehicle, having a cup of tea.
That an army, in this case the British army, is an organisation that matters in people’s lives and is a source of pride first dawned on me when I came to London to study. It was in late October, when suddenly more and more people walked around with a poppy on their lapel. I learned what and where the cenotaph was. When the IRA detonated bombs in Hyde and Regents Parks, I realised that soldiers in dress uniform were regularly out and about. And then the Falkland/Malvinas war began and the army was there, every night, on television.
That soldiers in Britain are part of everyday life, while most Germans are happy to ignore the Bundeswehr, has to do with the history of both countries: even for a generation like mine, born quite some time after 1945, there remains a deep, dark and terrifying thirteen-year-wide hole in Germany’s history. Generations have tried to understand the historical circumstances, the sociology and psychological make up of a nation that made the Holocaust possible. One conclusion is that the German army, the Wehrmacht, and the admiration, if not glorification, of all things military played a major part. For far too long what was to be admired in a man had been shaped by the culture of the military: obedience, doing one’s duty, accepting orders unquestioningly.These values penetrated right down to the family and gave some sense of stability in the political uncertainty of the Weimar Republic – until it all ended on 8 May 1945.
For ten years West Germany had no army and even then the founding of the Bundeswehr remained highly controversial: could it ever again be justifiable for Germany to be armed? Certainly the Bundeswehr was to be solely a defensive force. And well aware of what crimes Germans, in uniform and without, had committed by obediently following orders, the Bundeswehr defines its soldiers as ‘citizens in uniform’ – which means following orders while being prepared to question whether they are legal and in accordance with the constitution. A tough call for an eighteen year old, but a genuine attempt to have soldiers think and accept responsibility.
The proof of just how necessary it had been to discuss whether Germany should have an army at all and, if so, how soldiers should understand their role, came in the early 1990s, when the Wehrmachtsausstellung toured through German cities. In this exhibition historians for the first time had documented the war crimes committed by the Wehrmacht between 1939 and 1945, in particular in the Soviet Union – from mass killings of civilians and captured soldiers to plundering, burning, raping and ransacking. There were some bitter and angry protests against the exhibition, but for many Germans, in particular those born after the war, it was nothing but a confirmation of the attitude towards the military: somewhere between ignoring it to outright opposition.
Living in Britain has taught me to respect the bravery, courage, good intentions and suffering in individuals in the military. And as for the Bundeswehr: I am glad there was a long and heated debate in parliament over whether German soldiers (within the remit of NATO) should serve in Afghanistan. In the end those in favour had a slim majority. I guess in a democracy one has to live with that.
Marianne Landzettel is South Asia editor for the BBC World Service and formerly UK and Ireland correspondent for German Public Radio when she reported on veterans with PTSD in the British army. She and her husband Martin are Quakers living in London.
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