Search results
migrants from the Sea-Watch 3 ( Longhin, 2019 ). 15 On the history of the DGzRS, see Anders et al. (1997) and Claußen (2015) . 16 On the sinking of the Johanna , see Schramm (2009) . 17 Arguably, the idea of Europe was also challenged by the Eurozone countries’ response to the Greek debt crisis, and the German Willkommenskultur was also a reaction to the reputational damage perceived by Germans as a result of Germany’s role in that response (see Neumann, 2016 ). 18 An article in the online edition of the Bremen daily Weser
acceding to the FRG and without any further formal proceedings. Catapulted from the Warsaw Pact into the emerging eurozone, which would be set in train by the 1992 Treaty of Maastricht, East Germans did not share in the identity politics of either European integration or the Deutschmark. Since the GDR had laid all responsibility for Nazism at West Germany’s door, there had been no official reckoning with its citizens’ identity as
more ‘normal’ – that is, more like that of established nation-states such as France, Great Britain and the US. 4 In an attempt to further examine this question, scholars have assessed whether Germany’s foreign policy is still that of a ‘civilian power’, as is so often claimed. Berlin’s increasing engagement in international crises and its role in crisis-ridden Europe have proven key factors in leading some foreign policy observers to doubt whether Germany is still a ‘civilian power’. 5 In particular, the eurozone crisis has pushed the German government into the
-wing critics, Germany is a highly developed capitalist state whose elite profits from arms export to war-torn regions. In their view, descriptions of Germany as a civilian power are a farce. In particular since 2010, German positions in the financial crisis of the eurozone also triggered much foreign and domestic criticism. Germany is here seen as an irresponsible power because it denies its contributions to the crisis, such as its enormous surplus in trade with Southern Europe. From the critics’ point of view, German politicians and central bankers instead impose an