German Media and National Identity By Sanna Inthorn

The memory of the past, in particular the Holocaust and the failings of the Weimar Republic, informed West Germany’s choice of policies (J. Sperling, 1999, p. 276). Economic stability became regarded as the basis for social stability, democracy, and peace (J. Sperling), which meant that economic performance, symbolised in a strong and stable Deutschmark, become an important vehicle of postwar identity (Jarausch, Seeba, & Conradt, 1997, p. 41). Furthermore, West Germany adopted the policy of a civilian power and embraced a multilateral form of diplomacy (Jarausch et al.). Accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and European integration became central to the Westernisation of the Federal Republic and its attempts to secure the trust of its former enemies (Haftendorn, 1999, p. 1).

Europe in particular seemed a “less problematic fatherland” than the idea of the German nation (Berghahn, Flynn, & Michael, 1997, p. 179) and West German identity became increasingly detached from the idea of the German community of people collectively defined by members’ parental lineage, heritage of national culture, as well as shared cultural values, history, national character, and ancestry (Volk). The constitutional order of parliamentary democracy, but also strengthened federalism, “germinated a new legitimacy, found in what Habermas called Verfassungspatriotismus, in which democratic performance and adherence to constitutional values rather than ethno-national pride became the bases of identity” (Chandler, 1999, pp. 58–59). Increasingly, the image of an ethnic German nation was deemed to be waning. In the 1980s, national identity seemed so detached from the past of a once united Germany that among conservative thinkers there were concerns that national consciousness would disappear altogether. The memory of the past seemingly enabled West German politics and society to embrace a concept of the nation that was free from ethnocentric visions of a Volksgemeinschaft. “Constitutional patriotism” and “Staatsbürgernation”, which were grounded in appreciation of the benefits guaranteed by the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, the democratic order, and political processes, seemed to be widely accepted alternatives to ethnocentric identification with the nation.