I’m finishing up a quick visit to Germany after the Turkey trip. I stopped off in Hamburg to see Joe Joffe, another member of TAI’s editorial board, and met a group of his colleagues at Die Zeit.
The short take: Obama remains very popular in Germany, but people are less sure about America. The question here is almost whether we Americans are worthy of a leader as wise and progressive as the one we have got. One thing to remember: Germans don’t blame him for the economy as increasing numbers of Americans do. They judge him by his aspirations and by his evident, undoubted sincerity.
I’m not sure they will follow him where they don’t want to go. The war in Afghanistan is much more unpopular here than it is back in the states; people tell me that the polls show 60% to 70% of the people don’t think Germans should be involved in the war. Some Germans understand that this could be a problem for him — many Americans want to see whether Obama’s rock star appeal overseas can be translated into concrete help with some of the ugly chores on his to-do list.
Hamburg is one of the most beautiful — and most bourgeois — of German cities; there are a lot of stately Buddenbrooks like homes stretching out from the city center and for some reason the sleek modern office buildings here and there blend in well. Hamburg was always part of a liberal, pro-British, outward looking Hanseatic culture; it was a major media center in the West German era. It doesn’t take much to get Hamburgers to start telling Prussian and Bavarian jokes, like the one about two Bavarians and a Prussian in a beer hall. The Bavarians were trying to do the traditional Bavarian thing, eating radishes and drinking beer, but in the summer humidity they couldn’t get the salt to come out of the salt shakers. They were stuck with bland, insipid radishes; life was not good.
Then the Prussian came along and sat at the next table. He shook his saltcellar over the radish; nothing came out. He thought for a moment, reached over to a dish of toothpicks, took a toothpick and punched through the holes of the saltcellar. He picked it up, salted his radish, swallowed it down, drank his beer, wiped the foam off his mustache, and walked happily away.
The two Bavarians watched this performance; one turned and said to the other. “Those Prussians,” he said. “No culture, but ach! the technology!”
The light in Hamburg is special; this time of year the sun never gets very high in the sky and even as I waited at the platform for the train to Berlin at 9 in the morning the clouds were still pink from the late sunset. In high summer the sun sets very late this far north; I’ve been in Hamburg in June when there was still light in the sky past 10 at night. The long summer twilights and the short winter days have this in common: because the city is so far north the sun’s light comes in at an angle for hours at a time; the colors are soft and the clouds are lit from the side.
Autumn here seems to descend vertically; the tops of the trees along the Alster were barren and wintry but lower down the colored leaves still clung to the branches. Meanwhile the grass was bright green and a few flowers still bloomed here and there in the meadows.
The American diplomatic presence in Hamburg dates back to 1790; the current lakefront consulate ranks among the most beautiful we have. The last time I was here was during the Bush years; security at the consulate had been heavily increased and diplomats were concerned about the Al-Qaeda presence in the city. The security is still forbiddingly high, but Americans in Germany have a much easier time now than they did under Bush.
Being here has helped me understand the thinking of the Nobel committee who gave Obama the Peace Prize. His early speeches really did change things — in Turkey as well as in Germany. US relations with the Islamic world and with western Europe really are on a new footing.
But now comes the hard part: he has to lead.