Germany in crisis after surprise resignation of President Horst Köhler

Germany has been plunged into a political crisis by the surprise resignation of President Köhler.

The move — the first time that a modern German head of state has stepped down before the end of his term — will further sap the leadership of Chancellor Merkel and ignite a debate about the country’s involvement in the Afghan war.

I followed the story on German TV. As I understood it: Koehler just voiced what is in the German Constitution already, a number of days ago. Thing is: it is, given Germany’s history, a super-sensitive issue.

He got unfairly criticized, IMHO. He’s a gentle, intelligent guy, with a background in financial government. He was there for truly every German.

He got severely bashed by the media. Way too hard (he didn’t do anything untoward.

He’s a man of emotion and integrity. He had a hard time, and then did what he did.

If you ask me: the media are getting worse by the day, and run amok all of the time, at the risk of losing decent leaders.

“Köhler has said something openly that has been obvious from the beginning,” said Klaus Ernst, head of the Left party. “German soldiers are risking life and limb in Afghanistan to defend the [exports] of big economic interests.”

As an ex-pat living most of the year in Germany for nearly 2 decades, I can tell you that this kind of Marxist analysis is only covered over by a razor thin demeanor of goodwill toward the United States by the common man in Germany. Most Germans have had some sort of contact with America and many have relatives who are there. They are virtually unanimous in their expressions of warmth and goodwill for their associations with Americans and America. Nevertheless, this Marxist strain-which they would never acknowledge because it would never even occur to them to be Marxist-dominates most of the culture and politics.

This is why it is so easy for conspiracy theories against America to find fertile soil in Germany. This is why such a high percentage-I think one third-believe that the CIA had something to do with 9/11. A huge majority think that George Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to get the world into that war and they believe that the war was about oil. They apply much of this sort of analysis to Israel, although they would heartily deny any implication of anti-Semitism.

This is the landscape in which an American statesman must find a way for his country to survive the twin mortal threats of aggressive Islam and reinvigorated socialism. It is a daunting prospect to know that the fundamental alliance which guided America's foreign policy for half a century and more hangs by the thinnest of threads. To navigate our country through this thicket requires a statesman with the insight of Bismarck, Metternich or Churchill. Unfortunately, our man is himself a socialist who, if he does not seek world socialism and the submission of American sovereignty to that ideal, at least shares the general assumptions of the common man of Germany and does not share any ideal of American exceptionalism.

I take from this resignation confirmation of the cultural and moral disintegration of the German state. That is not to say that the German people are not good and moral people it is to say that they are rapidly losing their culture and any vision for themselves as a country. In short, patriotism is so yesterday.

It is all well and good for Freepers to fulminate and say we should turn our face from Europe. Nothing could be more foolish. We must find our allies where we can and, like Great Britain in the Napoleonic wars, make do with what we find.

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